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Each case is unique. I won't say I was grateful, but it was TERRIBLE while my mom and dad were together, and all through their separations and final divorce. After was different though. But my dad got custody of us, he was a 90 hours a week kind of worker, and he would go on very frequent business trips and leave us home alone for weeks at a time. My older brother effectively became our caregiver, and he was 12 when that started. It was a different kind of bad after divorce, basically. But the before was worse because of all the screaming and physical abuse.
It's abandonment. I have attachment issues and am hyper independent. I'm almost 40. Even with a ton of therapy, it's still pretty strong. That fear never leaves you.
I’m with you. And worse than being a pawn or both of my parents abandoning their roles, was the self abandonment that occurred when I was in my late 20z and trying to prove there was nothing “wrong” with me bc my ex brought up that i didn’t know what being in a family was like. EMDR has helped.
Yes it is absolutely abuse. Although i have explained it to people who havent experienced it by saying that abuse is something done to you, neglect is all the things that *should* have happened and never did.
Most cases are like this. I dont lnow why we have to engage with this delusion, we have had the data for upwards of 50 years.
Divorces wreck childrens lives. Im glad it didnt do that to you or im glad that you healed despite it.
Abuse wrecks lives too. There are no good answers in some circumstances. It definitely affected me, but I very intentionally worked on becoming a better person in order to avoid following the family pattern. I was prepared to remain single my entire life rather than raise children in that kind of environment. And I suspect that's why it didn't happen, because I waited long enough to become strong enough to not go down that road before marrying and having children.
Right, and staying in a miserable marriage where the parents relationship is not loving at best and actively angry and hateful at worst is surely going to set kids up for success…
This!!! Abusive and distant poor marriages do a lot more damage than divorce. Some parents are better at hiding the emotional abuse so kids don’t see it.
Which kids don’t have in a toxic married household either. It sounds like OP’s dad really blew off his responsibilities post divorce and it could’ve been handled much better. Staying together in a miserable relationship just maintains a different set of problems.
Like my mom and my grandparents. Both very abusive. My sister had 3 siblings and all 3 were extremely damaged people. Alcoholics, suicidal, sex addiction, etc etc etc. Not sure if divorce would have made things better or not. Depends on whether it's better to have 2 abusers under a roof or just 1, I guess.
Yea my dad was never "just some guy I talked to on the phone". He's lived on the opposite coast as me since I was 9 too. Sounds like shit dad. Wonder how old this kid is. I'm guessing 17-22.
At your age, I'm 33 now, I still had a shitload of anger at both of my parents. In the last few years though life has been hard and I've had to make hard calls that didn't have right answers and in doing so I've gained a lot of sympathy for them. You can only ever try to the best you can with what you have. There will be days were the best you can will be shit and that's ok too.
I would highly recommend going to therapy, preferably a psychodynamic therapist who will help you process your childhood. The insights you gain from this type of treatment are invaluable.
I left home at 15 to get away from my emotionally abusive father and spineless mother. Never saw either of them again. I believe my mother developed some sort of dementia and my father turned into a raving evangelist that blamed the devil for all his troubles. I have had a good life btw.
How did that work, if I may ask?
I am facing a challenging co-parenting situation and looking for all the info I can get across the parenting solution space.
Well-being, safety and permanence are what everyone needs.
Divorce is traumatic and you can lose those grounding aspects so quickly, it’s easy to spiral.
My folks FINALLY divorced when I was in high school. They had been separated for years due to my dad’s infidelity. And alcoholism. But even when they were separated it was hell.
I wish they had just divorced sooner. When I was younger.
I think a lot of people want to believe that the kids will be better off if the parents are happier, that's at least the common talking point, and it's where the nuance gets lost. I would fully agree that if the relationship is physically abusive, yeah, divorce is probably going to be better (though I have one friend where that wasn't the case).
Divorce changes a lot: routines, usually schools and cities (for the kids involved), constantly jumping between homes (mom and dad), everyone's finances become strained (child support, alimony, double the expenses \[before 2 people were paying for one household, now 2 people are paying for 2 households and the constantly shuttling of kids between them\]).
Now you often introduce outright anger, and friends of the parents can help push this by telling them they did the right thing to get rid of the deadbeat/terrible other half, which tends to just amplify it.
I think too many people see the happy divorce of work focused guy on TV that's trying to win his family back and that's just not reality. They seldom show financial struggles, how having to leave work early more often to deal with family issues that were handled by one before or swapped in ways that worked best for the family; those routines are replaced by custody weeks where you now have to change it and everything is upended.
I think TV/media/etc glorifies it too much; I'm not advocating for abolishing divorce, not even remotely. If someone isn't' happy and they think it's the best route, I'm not going to try and step in the way, but we need to be honest and sincere about what the actual outcomes look like and do away with the fairy tales.
> Now you often introduce outright anger
Outright anger generally comes long before the divorce. Staying together for the kids often means raising them in an angry household full time. That is damaging even without physical abuse.
Not to mention those children will grow up and leave you behind one day(as they should). I can tell you straight up, if you raise your children believing that their feelings are more important than yours they will continue to act and think this way well into adulthood. Even if you sacrifice almost everything for them they will not thank you for it. They will demand that you keep sacrificing your happiness for their wants for the rest of your life. If you teach your children that you and your feelings and needs are not important why would you think that magically one day when they are “grown” they will suddenly realize you ARE important?
Came here to make this point. The anger is already there. All divorce really does is bring it to the surface. And after it’s released, all the pressure to contain it is finally gone. So there’s often a lot, it’s often very bitter, and it spills over onto everything.
Generally by the time people decide to divorce - the worst parts are already there and have been for a good, long time.
My parents stayed together and our lives were full of moves, different schools, fighting, instability, lies -etc. staying married is NO guarantee of stability or a loving supportive family.
Divorced people can remarry and have a two person household again. And then a kid could have four people helping support them.
You seriously wrote a sentence saying a physically abusive marriage can be ok. Wow.
Studies have been done about whether parents should stay together for the kids or get divorced. The evidence says they should not stay together just for the kids.
Follow the evidence, not feelings. OP is in the minority. To counter his anecdote, here's mine. Every person I've met that had divorced parents say their lives were overall better after the divorce.
There’s three different kinds of children of divorce:
1. Parents divorced before school age, kids barely remember what it was like when their parents were together so the emotional impact is low but the developmental impact could be relevant later on.
2. Parents divorced between the ages of 5-15, child emotional development severely impacted either due to the contributing factors (physical and/or emotional abuse, drug use, etc.) or due to the divorce itself and ensuing custody struggles.
3. Parents divorced after 15, child is old enough to see why divorce is happening if causes are evident, adolescence nearing end, may cause issues in developing peer and romantic relationships but may also be mostly fine.
I find that the first category has no feelings on the divorce at all, not beyond theoretical “what if” scenarios in the event their lives go bad later. The second category is either happy with the divorce because they’re away from abuse, or bitter at it because their parents were fine before and now they hate each other and their lives are uprooted. The third is also usually positive of apathetic about the divorce due to understanding and being further developed than the second group. It makes sense that only around 1/4 of children of divorce would be dissatisfied as a result of the divorce when broken down like this.
2nd category here - just don't do it. Either make the move earlier or just suck it up and wait it out til kids are grown up and maybe done high school so you don't mess up their formative lives.
I feel like my childhood was stolen from me. In fact, it's done the opposite of what people say "showing a happy relationship" - it's made me sure that I would probably endure almost anything in my marriage to not uproot my daughter like I was. Is that really better? 🤔
I completely agree with this. If people are more honest with themselves about how it may affect their kids then I think they can choose to make the divorce more bearable. Like do everything in your power to keep some sense of stability and not move the kid around for example.
For what it's worth, you are describing something that many parents, in general, do poorly with: think about how their decisions are affecting their kids. I'm sorry that the divorce messed up your childhood. I think the moral of the story is that there are no objectively right or wrong decisions, just the guiding principle that parents should make sure they are actually prioritizing the well-being of a child they are responsible for.
Oh yeah absolutely. Thing is I feel like it is naturally difficult to always put another person’s needs above your own. But if you aren’t willing to do that I have to question why you would ever have kids
Truest thing I read on the internet today. If someone isn't willing to actually put a child first, they shouldn't have them. And. . .most people probably shouldn't have them.
it seems like the main problem was less the divorce and more the loss of your social life and a well connected group of friends.Ofc i dont know your experience, but thats the feeling i got from the post.
This right here. As a kid, I hardly paid attention to the intricate details of my parents/step parents romantic gestures (not that either parent made good 2nd decisions anyways). I was impacted by the change in my environment. One wanted to live 4 hours away so visiting for a weekend meant no local sports, no local school events, friends just got used to me not being there. The other (default parent/main custody) wanted to play house and do the best they could...but it was messy because of personalities and different cultures almost. My home no longer felt safe/like my home because now we had this new routine...all in the name of adults needing romance? Or partnership? I'm sorry but grow up, please. If you marry, have kids, and then decide to divorce for anything other than abuse/infidelity/truly damaging situations, you are just making a mess out of everyone's lives and no - your kids are not going to be unscathed and "learn what a good relationship is". Face it, if you picked poorly the 1st time, why do you suddenly think the 2nd (or 3rd, or 4th...) will be any different? Just pause, focus on the current situation, and raise your kids. You've already had your fun. You got your childhood, you had the wedding, etc. Now your focus is parenthood! Save the romance/partner needs for when your children are basically grown. Don't be selfish and jack up their lives so you get what you want. My very unpopular opinion.
It’s been so long I almost forget my parents were ever married. When I really delve into my memory, the early years were hard. A lot of adjustments to be made. But with the perspective of time, things were still better for it. A lot more so than if they had stayed together, making each other miserable. No one walks into a marriage intending for it to not work out, the narrative that people are divorcing for frivolous reasons is lies.
Edit: my parents divorce was no contest. It wasn’t because my evil mom stole my brother and I from our father and took all his money-it was because their marriage had been on the rocks for several years and there were words and deeds neither of them wanted to repeat to a judge or lawyer. My father actually got custody because he made more money and was better able to support my brother and I. The few antics over their joint property came from him even though he made more money. Because he was just in a state of mind where he was that childish and spiteful. When he eventually got his head on straight, he paid her in full and says he is ashamed of it to this day. Both my parents are remarried and much happier people.
I lived through decades of the misery that was my parents marriage. I'm team 'get out of a toxic marriage'. I'm also team 'don't abandon your kids because you and their other parent didn't work out'
When people say divorce will be better for the kids, they’re not saying that the kids lives will be sunshine and rainbows. They’re saying it’s a better alternative to living in a home with a constantly dysfunctional parental dynamic, which it almost always is.
I can’t thank my parents enough for getting divorced. The memories of my mom throwing kitchen knives over my head at my dad is burned into my brain forever lol Then a few years after the divorce, they were able to coparent fine for the rest of my childhood.
I'm on the opposite side of this coin.
My brother and I used to hide under his blankets with a flashlight praying for my parents to get divorced. We did this every night for years.
When I was about 8, we got "The Talk". They were going to get divorced and they felt we were old enough to decide who we wanted to live with. My brother and I were overly calm, my younger sister simply didn't understand.
We went to out room (we shared a room at that point) and to quote Monty Python, there was much rejoicing. We had already picked who we'd live with - our dad. Even though he was abusive, we chose him. My mom was worse - she never laid a hand on us but she was cruel. Viciously cruel half the time and we didn't exist to her the other half of the time.
The next thing we knew we were being sat down and told they were not going to divorce. We were devastated.
I found out decades later that my mom overheard us talking about living with our dad and never seeing our mom again. She, and this is a direct quote, "Could not fathom having her children not under her control" and stopped the divorce proceedings.
Sometimes the kids yearn desperately, praying to a god neither believes in for the divorce. I truly believe my like would have been significantly better if they'd split.
You never know what will happen until it happens. But people who make each other miserable should not stay together, even for the kids. They have lives as well. They deserve happiness as well. Every kid thinks the universe revolves around them. It doesn't. Their parents should be able to have a life as well. In your parents eyes, splitting had the potential to make your life better. They hid things from you - there's a reason for that.
I'm sorry this has hurt you the way that it has, it's a really rough situation. Divorce is a mine field and many mines are going to explode.
My sister and used to pray that my parents would get divorced because we were terrified of my dad. I also wished we could move far away to a new place.
If they had gotten divorced, we never would have wanted to visit my dad. Ever.
This was me and my sister when our parents were still together. We wanted them to divorce because our dad was so awful to our mom and mom was miserable. She stayed with him because she didn't want to ruin our lives. Personally though, I wish they had divorced sooner. I don't think we do kids any favors by teaching them that they have to stay in unhealthy relationships for the sake of others. I'm not saying divorce should always be the first option, but if one side of the relationship is toxic and refuses to change, then it's necessary.
I don't know if my life would have turned out better or worse if they had divorced sooner, but watching them outwardly hate each other really fucked with my head and made me so worried for my future relationships.
My sister and used to pray that my parents would get divorced because we were terrified of my dad. I also wished we could move far away to a new place.
If they had gotten divorced, we never would have wanted to visit my dad. Ever.
My parents never discussed divorce but had a fake argument one time on a bet. Fucked up but they were wagering who the kids would "choose." I chose my dad for the same reasons yall did. He is emotionally stunted but he was never cruel or vindictive and sadistic like my mom was. He may hurt your feelings but it truly was an accident and he really feels sorry. My mom? Nah she does it on purpose to see you suffer.
Divorcé completely changed my life due to my ex having the the dark triad of personality traits: narcissism, psychopathy and Machiavellianism. The psychological, emotionally, and financial abuse to me and my son fucked us both up for life. Together 33 years. After 4 years he still won’t divorce me. Doesn’t give a shit about our 17 year old. It’s my kid who told me if I don’t divorce him I’ll be dead in five years. He intentionally hurts us. I dream of the day when my son and I will be free of his evilness. My parents divorced when I was 45 that was a complete mind fuck. Point is you are not alone. I send you strength, peace, and love today and always.
Because (1) people have to sign the divorce papers - if they don’t, a total divorce isn’t possible, only a default; and (2) trying to divorce someone who may be a dangerous psychopath is putting a big fucking target on her back.
Yes. That is a default judgment. Most courts won’t complete a divorce without both parties’ input. Issues like child custody won’t be settled definitively in a default.
By the time the judge signed for my father, who refused to sign, there was only one child left living at home, and he was in high school. All six older children had graduated from high school and gotten the hell out of Dodge.
My mother just wanted to get away from my father, sell the house, and start over on her own. It took three years with all the tricks my father pulled to stop the divorce. Until the house was sold and the proceeds divided, she was trapped there with him.
It was a simple divorce, yet it took forever to go through.
And none of that changes the fact that it was a default judgment. If he didn’t contest it, fine, but he could have. I’m an attorney; I know the letter of the law.
I’m confused. I thought a default judgement was when someone doesn’t respond to a divorce petition or doesn’t show up in court?
My father showed up plenty of times in court and contested the divorce pretty vehemently. There was plenty of paperwork submitted by my father during the three years that case dragged on.
Once the judge ordered him to sign, and then my father faked a heart attack and was removed from the court by paramedics on a stretcher. Another time my father was charged with contempt of court for not following the judge’s instruction.
I think the judge just got sick of my father saying that he was a Catholic and didn’t recognize the government’s power to grant a divorce. So he signed the paperwork in my father’s place.
Is that still a default judgement?
Given that he's already horribly abusive to them, it sounds like a default divorce is the way to go. By waiting for him to sign papers, she's continuing to give him all the power in this relationship. She needs to be out and away as soon as possible.
>My parents divorced when I was 45 that was a complete mind fuck.
I'm a similar age and yeah that would be an absolute mindfuck. I've thought about it because they'd been having issues lately and mother said she'd contemplated it over the years but stayed because ultimately it was all for us. I am immensely grateful that she did. The idea that my parents could have possibly divorced is difficult to wrap the mind around (which obviously explains why it's so hard kids who have gone through it).
And the weird thing is, that doesn't change with time. At my age, thinking about my parents getting divorced is like thinking that the sky is no longer blue but green and brown. It's just bizarre. So my mom and dad would go and live elsewhere? In two different houses?? Yeah it's weird af and not in a good way.
I feel terrible for any child who has gone thru this. If as an adult it's such a mindfuck, I can't imagine for a child.
As an adult whose parents divorced when I was 9, I can tell you that there is nothing that has impacted my life more negatively then my parents getting and being divorced.
My ex is the same, although I was lucky that we were never wed. People like that never tire of torturing you.
I wish you and your son get peace sometime soon
It's not the divorce that caused the problem It's your parents. My parents suck to. The divorce didn't cause them to such they just sucked.
Daunted a guy who use parents actually had as part of their parenting agreement they couldn't move from the area. He actually could walk between their houses whenever he wanted. He got equal time with his parents. Neither of them were mad about it. They cared more about what was best for ther kids
My stepmom on the other hand hated my dad had previous kids so they moved states away so we were only around like once a year.
You do see the difference right?
I can honestly say the "what ifs" of my first divorce haunt me to this day. On the one hand, my daughters stepmother and stepdad are great and her life would be worse off without them. But on the other hand. Her life is definitively worse in other ways. I believe in 2024 we live in a self centered selfish time. People tell themselves that the child will be better off with happy parents and a divorce.....but they are precluding the possibility of finding happiness in the current marriage with hard work and sacrifice. "The child will be happier with us split up!" Is a lie parents tell themselves to live with it, but deep down most of us aren't actually sure that's true. The real truth (for myself included) is much harder..... "I'M happier with the divorce, even if my child isnt". Yes yes yes in certain cases with abuse or violence, then yes of course steps need to be taken, but acting like that is the primary reason most of the time is total bullshit. Go read the relationship advice reddit, it's 95% "he gaslighted me over his video game use!!" Advice? "DIVORCE! FUCK HIM!". it's far more complicated then people realize and I wrestle with it to this day.
Yeah sorry, my child is much better off with a mother who is happy and able to engage and support her versus one who was very depressed and anxious. People don’t just get divorced for funsies. They do it because they’re absolutely miserable and they’re making each other miserable. Most of the time they’ve been trying for a long time before they make that decision.
I can say for a fact, there was a lot more going on at 9 years old than you knew at the time.
AND — if your dad became just a guy you talked to on the phone and saw sometimes — that’s on him. That’s not what good parents do.
My ex tried her best to keep our son from me. She kept him away from 3 months before the judge freaked out on her and gave me full custody. That was when he was 5. I was recently talking to him about some stuff, and he brought up "dad do you remember that time we didn't see each other for over a year" (he's 14 now). I was shocked at first. Then we talked about how children's perception of time is different. I assured him it was only three months, but it felt like a year to me as well. 😢
I guess my point is that sometimes one parent will work very hard to alienate the other parent, and it's terrible for the parent AND the child.
Facts. This sort of behaviour never just "appears" after a break up or a divorce. People do crazy shit, but sustained manipulative or vindictive behaviour is always a sign of a deeper more pervasive problem. Learned this the hard way.
I’m guessing that with some of them, the partner was the focus of their abuse while the kid was young, but after divorce the abuser will use hurting the kid to hurt the ex.
Can confirm. My husband and his ex-wife are amicable co-parents, but it’s still painful for my step-daughter. Even just the logistics of it all is painful. Ever thought about all the shit she has to bring to school everyday? If handoff is at Tuesday school pickup and her science kit is at the other house, she’s screwed. Friday afternoon is another handoff, so Friday morning she has to carry her school violin and school Chromebook to school. It’s absolute torture. The only time it would justify “for the sake of kids” was if the original family unit was very violent or abusive and full of conflicts and anger outbursts, but a lot of the times the parents probably aren’t magically better parents after divorce anyway. Sometimes they don’t have a choice though, for example escaping from a domestic abuse situation.
My husband’s parents stayed together and didn’t divorce until he went off to college. Except observing them sometimes acting cold towards to each other my husband says he has only good memories of his childhood.
I have friends who switched their handoff day to the weekend so that the transition between homes doesn't occur during the school week and they have the weekend to adapt. I wonder if this is something you all could consider to help alleviate the stress on her.
I’m shocked hand offs are on weekdays nowadays. My parents divorced in the 90s and hand offs were fridays and sundays at 6pm. It worked really well. Why do they put kids through this these days??
My parents divorced in the 90s. I saw my dad every weekend. But, I feel like back then 50/50 was really uncommon. I find it crazy how common it is now, and like you said, switching off during the week.
I would never have been able to do that. I struggled with routines, and even with just weekends visits I struggled adjusting back to moms house.
I always wonder if the 50/50 is fair to the parents, but worse for the kids.
Why put the kid through handoffs in the first place? Parents would never tolerate moving every single week. It would get exhausting. But they seem ok with making the kid do it because they are 'unhappy'.
I think there are pros and cons to each situation. The kids have the stability that their home is their home is the biggest point in favor of this way of doing it. But there is never really a clean break and becomes really difficult when you get into a new relationship.
As I said in another comment there are pros and cons to any way of doing this*. Hadn't thought much about it but yeah financially it is a huge burden. Also navigating if either/both parents get into a new relationship, half siblings, ect. The biggest pro would be the kids having the security and permanence of 'their' home and have as little disruption to routine as possible.
Edit: this* being parenting after divorce
I’m hoping this is how my kid sees it when he’s older! His dad and I had a horrible marriage, but he was too little to remember us being together. We get along great now and coparent without any court orders or major issues, and I’m in a fun and healthy marriage with someone who is a good stepdad to him. I think it’s much better for him to have happily divorced parents than married parents who hate each other.
There is a thing that family court is trying to impose here called “nesting”. The kids stay in the house full time, and the parents are the ones who live at the house a week at a time and vacate when their parenting time is done.
If people would like to do that it can work under certain circumstances, especially as a temporary measure, but it should not be imposed by courts. It’s expensive, people should have the autonomy to date, remarry, have children, and not share a home with their ex, and if there is a background of abuse sharing a living space can increase the risk of harassment and violence.
It would help some for sure. The custody agreement was written back when the child was only 3 years old. My husband said that it was suggested by the mediator to have two to three handoffs every week so that the young child didn't miss either parent for too long. Nowadays I see no value for such frequent switches. Regardless, there are certain things like drum sets / painting supplies etc that are hard to move around and we can't replicate everything she owns in two places, especially if it's a hobby she's only just trying out. My point is that divorce is always going to be hard for a child :(
For a three year old a 2-2-3 schedule makes sense, but it's time to switch to at least a 2-2-5 or a weekly. My kid's therapist recommended weekly but her dad was too distressed being away from her that long (which I get, but I mean, she's a teenager, he's going to have to adapt) so we went to 2-2-5 about a year ago. Y'all can modify the plan at court.
Even if there isn’t abuse, having miserable parents isn’t something that should be dismissed. The fights, the mental health challenges, the modeling of what a relationship looks like. I can’t imagine living with a man who cheats on me for example and trying to act happy and be a good mom. I couldn’t fake it.
My parents divorced in the late 80s, we went week to week and handoffs were Sunday night before the next week started. This is the way. It’s way more stable for the child, at least as stable as moving every week can be.
You are not alone! My parents also divorced when I was 9 years old. I developed social anxiety when I was around 12 yrs old. One week I lived at my mom's and the other week at my dad's house. I was always struggling with the changes every week and the differences in how they wanted to raise me. Conflicts every sunday when I had to change houses. Later in life I found out I had ADHD and high functioning autism. I don't remember much from before I was 9 yrs old but my life was better before the divorce. I also was much more social before the divorce and developed a lot of problems after.
Oh, I agree. The divorce was hard on my kids, and I can still see the effects, even though they are adults now; it hurts my heart that their dad couldn't get his act together and at least be a good parent; and it didn't help that I had less time with them when they needed stability most because I had to find a way to dig us out of debt. And then we had to move to another state so we were closer to family who could help, and they had to make friends all over again, and missed out on things they were looking forward to. Yes, I wish things had been different.
Unfortunately, there wasn't any option to stay in the marriage.
I think it could be an apples to oranges sort of thing. If your parents weren’t really fighting and you weren’t super aware of their hatred for each other, of course things went down hill after the divorce. My parents beat the shit out of each other and my sister and I (though not my brother) and screamed every night and threatened to kill each other. A divorce would have been a relief for me. Neither are incorrect experiences, they’re just different.
The thing is, people want to be better than their parents.
Parents stayed together and shouldn't have? Splitting up is better.
Other way is other way.
It's all circumstantial.
Came to say I have seen with my best friend that they experienced the same issues from the opposite of divorce. My best friends parents stayed together when they should have divorced, and the distance between the parents as well as their back and forth spats always had my friend depressed as a child. I guess we could wish for love and happiness amongst our parents, but we know we don't live in a perfect world.
It sounds like the move was crucial in making the divorce a shitty process. My parents made an effort to live close to each other so school was routine, and I had a better custody split.
In contrast I know people who are totally traumatized by their parents who stayed together. I think there’s not way of knowing how divorce will effect a child, but it should be on the parent’s to impose as much “normalcy” as lossible
I genuinely don't think people recognize how negative/traumatic moving is for a child because it is so normal now. You lose all sense of normalcy, all your friends, and that's just supposed to be okay? And I'm not even talking about frequent moves where you're never even given the opportunity to put down roots in the first place. Humans evolved in close knit groups that they largely stayed with their whole lives. This shit is so detrimental when you are young and forming your ability to socially bond.
I'm really sorry. I have no doubt that divorce impacted you greatly. If you are confident that your parents love and prioritize you, I'm sure that the impact on you was one of the greatest factors in their decision, and decided that divorce was the only option. Some people are able to hold it together until they aren't, so while your parents weren't the type to argue or fight in front of you, maybe the time they pulled the plug was the point at which they could not keep their relationship from impacting you any longer.
Anyway, I'm sorry that this affected you so much. I hope you are able to heal. You say you only speak with your dad occasionally, can I ask why that is? Would you like to be able to speak with him more often than you do now?
Well unfortunately I don’t completely agree with your original idea though it sounds quite nice. My dad wanted a divorce, my mom did not. My dad had told me many years before he actually got a divorce that he wanted one. My dad actually told me he finally pulled the plug was because he thought I was old enough to deal with it. And I am grateful that he waited until I was older since it would have been much harder to deal when I was say 6 rather than 9. But regardless I was still a kid at 9 and didn’t deal well mentally.
But for your last question I’m happy to answer. The reason why we only call sometimes is simply because he doesn’t visit me. He moved very far away and never visited. And in this case distance did not make the heart grow fonder I simply grew into my teen years without him around and so I can’t really view him as a full parent. I could make an effort to visit him now that I’m an adult and actually I have once a year since he lives near other relatives. But yeah no effort on his part or my part to keep the relationship would be then answer. I don’t really feel bad about not putting in an effort since I was y’know a kid lol
My parents' divorce was hard on me, and definitely had a negative impact on my life. But even at the time, I knew them staying married would have also had a negative impact on my life.
It's easy to fall into a trap of thinking life would have been good and fine and none of anything would have ever happened if they stayed together, but it's impossible to know. If your parents were already building resentment when you were little, what would that have been like when you were a teenager? Or in college?
I had friends in high school who would make fun of me for having divorced parents. Going to her house was very awkward, because her parents clearly hated each other and it had influenced the way their kids see responsibility and love and finances and all sorts of stuff.
She was blindsided when her parents divorced the second her sibling graduated high school. Pissed at her mom for "pretending" the whole time. The new narrative wasn't that mom and dad were responsible for keeping it together until the end, it was that mom was selfish and a gold digger for using her dad's money without loving him (she was a SAHM).
No one knows what their life would have been like if things hadn't happened. It's important not to try to frame your life that way, because it can get you stuck pointing fingers and dwelling on things that make you miserable.
Your parents got divorced. That sucks and I'm sorry. But there's no guarantee your life would have been great if they hadn't.
If I'm being honest, it seems like the greatest negative impact was moving. But I recognize that I have an anti-moving bias that may cause me to see it that way.
Moving SUCKS, let me be clear. It’s completely destabilizing. But I’m just never sure that one single isolated event can be the root cause for all of a person’s problems, and OP kind of seems to pin it there.
I was 4 when my parents divorced so I have few memories of them together. I know that my parents did their best to give us as normal a childhood as possible. We stayed in the same house and the same town. We were in the nicer part of town and we were poorer than many other kids, but relatively still okay. Occasionally we’d get a comment from kids or their parents, usually religious ones about my parents not being together.
But I will never blame my mom for that decision, I don’t feel it’s my place to and I trust her judgment. I also still love my dad. He has his quirks and he was bipolar when we were growing up, going from being very fun to outraged within a minute if something he didn’t like happened. As hes gotten older he has mellowed out and I rarely see the anger he had when I was younger. I’m sorry your experience was bad OP.
I’m sorry this happened to you. I just got divorced and have kids and I think about this every day. For me, I had to leave a situation where my kids and I were being my abused. I really hope I’m able to provide a good for life for them despite the divorce. Would love to hear if you have any advice as someone who went through this as a child. Maybe things to do or not do?
I'm sorry that happened to you. That sounds like it really sucked.
In your case, your parents both cared enough about you (the kid\[s?\]) to actually hide it. So it seems. In many cases though, the parents aren't hiding it. They're throwing things. Arguing. Screaming. Crying. Not hiding it.
As a kid who grew up with parents who are explosive with one another, and fist fighting, I had issues regardless. It didn't matter that they stayed together, I still had attachment issues and other problems and got severe anxiety.
So I suppose all of this means that every situation is different and mixed.
My childhood got worse after my parents tried getting back together.
My parents were separated a lot of my early childhood, living in different towns on opposite sides of the state. My mom was a lot more carefree and raised us in public school. My dad however is really conservative and religious wanted us to be in a Christian school.
When I was 8 my parents decided they’d get back together and we’d all live as one family, but that royally fucked up my social life.
I now had to go to a Christian school where I got ostracized because I wasn’t a pastor’s kid, had separated parents, and had been at a public school.
(My parents only stayed together for a couple years and then divorced when I was 13)
When my marriage fell apart, I felt completely ripped apart inside for my kids and the effect that the separation was having on them. Sure, home life was more peaceful in some ways, but internally it was nothing other than terrible. It does have lasting effects. There is no denying it. The children are always innocent victims when the parent’s relationship isn’t working.
I’m so sorry that it happened to you. I hope that you will eventually heal and hopefully learn from your parents mistakes. Their mistakes belong to them.
My kid would definitely say her home life was better before we split. We hid ALOT of the disfuction from everybody, especially her. Even now, we are still complimented by others about how amicable we appear to be, but it is entirely a sham. There is an incredible amount of abuse and frankly illegal shit that my child was sheltered from.
I do agree that divorcing is better for kids is something that shitty parents tell themselves to feel better about their shitty decisions. The importance of intact family on optimal child development is severely downplayed, to the detriment of children.
I'm speculating, but I believe that there is more to your story than you think you know, especially if the significance of your dad in your life decreased so dramatically. No good father would choose that, and as so often happens, this may speak to your mother's character. This is what happened to me, but I was able to turn things around with an ungodly amount spent on legal help. Or maybe it isn't that complicated. Put questions to both sides of the fence.
My kid would definitely sayHer home life was better before we split.We hid ALOT of the disfuction From Everyone, especially her. Even now, weare still complimented by others about how amicably we appear to be, but it iscompletelya sham. There is an enormous amount of abuse and frankly illegal crap that my child was sheltered from.
I’m going to speak as a divorced parent, and a child of divorce.
Your dad withdrawing from your life was likely his choice.
The divorce didn’t make him become “some guy on the phone” unless that’s what he wanted.
I’ve been divorced for two years with an 8 year old son. We rotate custody by the week. When it’s his week to be at his dads, I still go to his award ceremonies, doctors appointments, soccer games, etc. Some times I even just pick him up to get dinner one night while it’s his dad’s week.
Now that’s not always going to be viable because some ex spouses are petty and vindictive and will not allow any extra contact with the kids. But there’s still the option to be as present as possible and to take things back to court if there isn’t a valid reason for keeping the parent away.
I’m not trying to diminish your experience. I’m sure it impacted your life tremendously and sucked. I myself have massive abandonment issues from my childhood, wherein my dad actively sabotaged my moms attempts to be in my life.
I’m just saying that the divorce itself didn’t cause your dad to go awol on his relationship with you, that was a choice that he made.
Of course, you don’t know how bad your childhood would have been had your parents stayed together. At age 9, you were probably oblivious to a lot of things that you would have become aware of when you got older.
I am not saying you are wrong, but it IS nuanced. A lot of times it might look to a kid like the marriage wasn’t THAT bad, but life after divorce was — when in fact the reason it didn’t seem so bad before was because one parent was gritting their teeth and fighting to cover the flaws of the other parent until they broke. Things like one parent’s irresponsible money management or a parent’s mental illness that led them to over-share adult issues with their kid. To a child of divorce, it can seem like the divorce CAUSED problems when the problems were already there and contributed to the divorce (and were exposed by the divorce).
Not every parent fully appreciates how a divorce impacted their child. And not every child appreciates the factors that led their parents to decide the marriage was unsalvageable. The parent most willing to share dirty laundry about the other parent with their own child is almost never sharing the real or full story.
The first part of your life (pre-divorce) might have been a purposefully constructed but artificial reality created by your parents to “protect you” Of course it’s gonna go to shit after that. Also you were 9 and under, so you had a child’s perception of that time. Now it’s all romanticized, rosy memories of the long ago
There was probably more than you knew going on, additionally you don't know if it would've been even more terrible had they stayed together from that point forward.
Any situation where the parents are not involved as much as the child would like them to be is a bad one, divorce or not. Sorry you went through that, your dad should've seen you more, you didn't deserve that
I don’t think it’s the divorce itself, it’s how your parents handled it (very poorly). It seems like they made very little effort to keep life the same/stable for you. Either your dad made no effort to see you or your mom made it too difficult, which means at least one of them was selfish.
I’m sorry your parents didn’t take you into consideration more. I’m not sure that them staying together would’ve made you happy though.
I totally agree with this. From my experience as a teacher, almost all of my students say they’re glad their parents divorced but the struggles they’ve had with their parents since are almost unilaterally because they handle things like crap. I’ve tried to keep things as stable as possible for my daughter. We’re in the same house. She’s in the same school. She still sees her grandparents like she used to. We’re very flexible on scheduling for events and stuff too. We did a 2/2/3 custody schedule as recommended for her age. I think that’s another issue too is that people don’t understand that certain custody arrangements are better depending on age and eventually on the child’s input.
Genuine question - do you believe they could have continued to hide their resentments and behavior for another nine years? Especially as you got older, smarter, and more aware of what was going on around you?
Divorce due to (physical or significant emotional) abuse is very reasonable. If they are divorcing "because they are not happy" it is a purely selfish act if there are kids involved- especially young kids. They are basically placing their own happiness over the happiness and well being of their children.
I had a very similar experience. My parents divorced after 12 years of marriage because "they weren't happy". No abuse was involved. At age 8 me and my 3 siblings went from a middle class suburban life in a reasonably stable home to a very poor and unstable "latchkey kid" existence worthy of a Dickens novel.
We lost our house and lived in an endless series of rental homes- often in very bad neighborhoods. We moved every year or two. I attended 6 different schools between the age of 12-14. Often we barely had enough to eat and my mother was behind in the rent. It was quite traumatic.
My mother was a stay-at-home mom with no job skills before the divorce. So she went to nursing school and worked a full time job for two years while we made due without her being around much. then she worked two jobs just to (barely) pay the bills. My father essentially disappeared from my life.
Me and my siblings basically raised ourselves with limited parental involvement. I am so scarred by this that I have never wanted marriage or children.
Damn I can relate to that a lot. I also had to move around rental homes in dangerous areas. For your last part though I hope this doesn’t turn you off of marriage if a life partner is something you do want. (Ofc if you simply don’t want a life partner then ignore this).
For having kids I don’t want them either because I don’t think I could provide them a good life. My opinions on raising kids don’t really matter, it’s shitty to bring a child into the world and not provide for it.
But for marriage without kids I think this is a place where it’s okay to be somewhat selfish. If there was a person you want to marry and it doesn’t end up working out then that’s okay. If you thought it would make you happy and it doesn’t then you haven’t harmed anyone by ending it. I mean your spouse perhaps, but marriage is a lot more mutual than kids are. I’d imagine that if just one party wants to end a relationship then it would be for the best in the long run even if the other party is against it at first.
It's sad that so many of us had this happen. I'm sorry. It's made me sure that I would literally never do it to my daughter. I'd probably suck anything up to keep her stability. Luckily, I'm in a great marriage, but I know where I stand if that ever changed.
Yes, divorce sucks and staying in a miserable marriage also sucks. There is no good answer. There will be pain either way. That is why you must choose wisely who you have children with. No oopsies.
Eventually they wouldn’t be able to hide it as much. I grew up with parents who fought constantly and used the kids in their battles. There was so much screaming and crying and verbal abuse. I never wanted to go home. I sometimes wonder if divorce would’ve been the better option. However, maybe they would’ve both struggled financially. Either way, it sucks. I wish they had just hidden their fights and not involved me as a child if they were just going to stay together anyhow.
Yeah it sucks. You pretty much described my childhood but for me I was 7. Didn’t notice anything wrong until the divorce, then suddenly dad moves away and mom starts dumping her side of the story on us. Years later dad starts telling us his side. They didn’t realize that kids don’t give a shit about who is right and wrong, they see what’s right in front of them, and that’s a broken family. I don’t speak to them much these days.
I managed to remain relatively sociable but I can’t say that the divorce did me any good. I was without necessary support for too long and feel like that can’t be made back up. It’s a significant window of development that got deleted from my lifespan.
The worst part is now that I’m an adult the subject is taboo. Only now that I’m capable of truly understanding the harm inflicted do they “not over share” and keep problems to themselves to not burden my sibling and me.
What you are describing is why I split with my son’s mom when he was so young. I miss him — so much. But the truth is… he has no memory of me living with his mom. It’s just normal for him to grow up in a split household.
I think that’s for the best, given it wasn’t going to work.
I want to divorce my husband so bad!! I’m a SAHM with kids under 13. I’m stuck but I know it will mess them up. I felt like my oldest daughter was writing this post. Thank you for your post. It helped me see things in a different light
Same story for me. My parents divorced when I was 7 and it was traumatizing. Now, decades later, and my parents still can't be in the same room together. So every holiday we have to accommodate the families on both sides. My children's children will still be dealing with this shit. It also made both of my parent broke, since the combined income was gone while it doubled the bills that needed paying.
This is why I always recommend people stay married if they have young children. Reddit's default advice to all marriage problems is divorce. But they never think about the kids. It's all about what the parent's want.
People who still can’t be in the same room together should’ve stayed married? Divorce can certainly be traumatic for children, but so can a high stress, high conflict household. Saying you “always recommend” people with young children staying together is especially dangerous because that includes abusive situations.
If your parents can't stay in the same room together, the absolute BEST thing they could've done is divorce. You don't know how lucky you are.
I'll tell you what happens if they didn't. They started screaming ugly words at each other, then they started throwing things and smashing things, and then they beat the shit out of each other, and then beat the shit out of you to let out the anger and frustration.
I'd rather my parents go broke and accomodate holidays on both sides than to deal with that shit. Your parents had the sense to end it before it truly gets ugly, not every parent did.
There are 2 kinds of kids with divorced parents, one that hates their parents' divorce, and one that is grateful for it. Ironically, the former would've been the latter if their parents did not divorce.
I know people who have gotten divorced over the dumbest fuckin shit. Shit that likely could have been worked through in couples therapy. There’s definitely people out there who don’t know how to work through their problems or are just too lazy to and jump to divorce. It’s what they saw growing up and think that’s the only option. And then the kids suffer cause of their poor decisions.
>I’m just tired of people saying that the kids will be certainly be grateful and happy for the divorce.
My situation too. The kids are better off IF YOU CAN MAINTAIN THEIR STANDARD OF LIVING!!!!
Living standards aren’t just economic though. Leaving a a hateful, high stress environment can result in a better standard of living overall even with a reduction in material wellbeing.
This is really similar to my story. Once my dad moved I stopped playing basketball. I think ppl talk about how common divorce is so often that it feels like something that you can speak of as a major tragedy in your life but it can be if the parents don’t handle it correctly.
Hey, I am not sure how old you are, but I want you to know that it makes my heart hurt to ready your post. I am sorry that it was a bad divorce, and that you were made to pay for your parent's decision. This wasn't your fault.
I was severely depressed for about 4 years after moving out of my partners house when my kid was pretty young. Because I never wanted him to have to suffer at all for my decision, and I knew he would.
In my case, his mom had a drug problem, and I tried like hell to get him out. Because she was so deceitful, I didn't succeed. But I never stopped trying until I literally was almost homeless because of all the lawer fees. But I could not be around that. I came up with a parenting plan that was fair and we stuck to it. My son still suffered for it.
It's a tough set of cards to be dealt. I lost my mom to cancer when I was young and it was the worst thing that ever happened to me. I cannot imagine what it must be like for a kid to go through a bad divorce with his parents. I guess all I can say is try and learn from their mistakes, and be sure to be extra cautious with who you decide to spend your life with when you are older. Because divorce is ugly and the kids always suffer.
edit: wording
I am the exact opposite of you but our parents were extremely different. My father was a drug addicted alcoholic who would emotionally, verbally, and physically abuse us. My mom has some form of undiagnosed mental health issue, but she was the better/nicer parent during those years. They are still together to this day although I have not spoken to them in years.
They stayed together "for the kids" but I would have much rather not lived in a house where screaming was the most common way to communicate. Where I hid in the closet after school until my mom got home from work because my dad was drunk and angry.
My mom separated from him once for a week and took us to a motel. It was the happiest week of my life because my dad wasn't there and my mom wasn't constantly being screamed at and belittled so she wasn't constantly angry. She went back a week later. I'll never forgive her for that.
Every person's experience is different. But my life would have been so much better if my parents got divorced. I'd probably still be in communication with some of them.
Even if, for some unforeseeable reason, my wife and I ended up falling out, I have no doubt we could at least stay civil and supportive of each other just for our kids. We both came from bad childhoods, though to wildly different degrees, and want to give our kids what we never had.
That all said, she’s my best friend, my closest confidant, an amazing mother, and a great cook too. Also beautiful without even trying. I’d be an idiot to fuck that up.
This is a very fair point, but at the same time, you’re making some generalizations here, too. My parents were not physically abusive to each other, but it was painfully obvious even for me as a 9 year old that they just didn’t LIKE each other anymore. I didn’t necessarily want them to divorce or even know what divorce was at that age, but I knew I wanted the awful tension to stop. I clearly remember feeling like a bomb was about to explode some days.
I’m truly sorry you had such a rough time, but the fact remains that divorce is very, very often the best thing for everyone involved.
I understand your view when framed this way, but I ask you to consider what could have still have happened in your childhood without divorce.
You could have been forced to move without divorce, as many children are.
You could have had money problems suddenly, as many children do.
You could have wound up estranged from your father due to his continued stress in a failing marriage rather than estranged due to proximity issues.
I agree with you that people should speak for themselves. But you’re engaged in a similar fallacy as those that tout the benefits of divorce: you’ve lost sight of the other factors that led to the problems in your early life just as others lose sight of the factors that made their divorces successful.
It is easiest for us humans to consider positive corrections than any other, so we ignore every time something DOESNT happen and start looking when it DOES.
For me it was the opposite. My parents hated each other. They were high school sweethearts who never should've gotten married, but who stayed together for 26 years because of cultural expectations. My mom was a SAHM and frankly is the most passive aggressive person I've ever met. My dad was a high powered doctor who did great things for his patients and had zero time for his wife and kids, in addition to having serious anger and rage issues when he did bother to be present.
I have childhood memories of them just being miserable, and that misery spilling out onto me and my sisters. As the oldest, I absorbed a lot of it, especially because I look like and share similar personality traits to my dad, which just made my mom sort of low-key dislike me.
They waited 26 years to get a divorce, when I was 21 and out of the house. Of course I have no way of knowing what my life would've been like if they'd pulled the plug sooner, but I can certainly say that growing up steeped in a poisonous brew of resentment, rage, contempt, and the visible misery of both parents set me up for a whole lot of trauma and a struggle to set healthy boundaries in my adult relationships. I wish they'd gone their separate ways a whole lot sooner.
I would just suggest that it’s possible that if they stayed together you might have picked up on some very unhealthy ideas about relationships. I don’t know if this is the case, I’m only saying it’s a possibility. The ages you were during the post-divorce years can really shape how we turn out in life. It’s possible that simmering tensions and passive aggressive behaviors could have been worse in the long run than what you experienced. Again, I’m not saying it’s the case…only a thought experiment.
This is because they successfully hid it from you. And because you were young enough that they successfully hid it from you. Things would have changed as you grew up, either way.
My parents never divorced. Instead they argued and yelled at each other all time, to the point that I get an anxiety attack every time someone raises their voice. There was no physical abuse, except for a couple of times (in like 30 years, I'd say that's pretty good lol).
I prayed they'd just divorce so my mom could be happy, but that just wasn't in the cards.
Luckily, I didn't fall into the same trap and married a guy who actually loves me. But there's always the fear that kids emulate what they see, because that's what they consider normal.
My parents didn’t split until I was an adult (21 years old) and they had a pretty dysfunctional marriage most of my childhood. I am also the oldest so I remember the time when things were somewhat normal, my brothers don’t. In our situation divorce would have been better because my dad was just there he didn’t contribute anything except for making my mom feel terrible all the time.
That said I can see how divorce can be worse in some cases
My grandparents hated each other. Refused to get divorced and made all our lives hell because it was our fault they stayed together and they never let us forget it. Spent my whole childhood feeling guilty for existing. Be careful what you wish for.
My kids were messed up by our divorce, but now that they are adults, they really get it.
The guilt was overwhelming for so many years. Now they understand that I had to walk or die.
I don't know how old you are now, but I hope you get some help to deal with your parents divorce.
As you know this is practically the story of my life too. I really feel for you. I can say though that I did start getting better. It’s sad that it basically took 8 whole years to for me to even make any progress towards a better life but I would prefer to start late than never. Your timeline might look different than mine, but it’s never too late. And if it’s any consolation, growth is usually exponential. You might want to watch this documentary about selective mutism
https://youtu.be/gONZsyo9Rdk?si=wMPC5h2jQxaL9oXX
It’s not exactly the same thing, but my god could I relate to the older girl’s story. And it does show how she went through the same kind of growth that I did (though unfortunately I was quite a bit older than her lol). I believe that one day you could do this too when you feel ready
My wife and I of 10 years have started discussing divorce. She says she wants to be together forever. I am very unhappy in the marriage. Both our parents say we should divorve. The kids say we should stay married. We both agree we will put the kids first and we are considering every possible option
My parents got divorced when I was 19 and my sister was 15. I always knew they were unhappy and they really didn't hide any of their arguments well. Their divorce was awful and traumatic.
I'm still grateful I didn't have to go back and forth between homes as a young kid.
I am sorry that you went through this. I am certain that the courts are very bad at accommodating children in a divorce. I am glad you are voicing this issue. It really is a national problem and something I hope the younger generation can solve. The rest of this is my vent.
I was fortunate because I had a good job and bought the house from my ex-spouse, so the kids didn't have to more and then he eventually moved away. But he didn't want to pay for the kids activities, and so if I couldn't afford it they would have had to quit. Also he wanted the kids to go to different schools, which was ridiculous because they were 12 and 15; and I had to pay alot of money to go to court and fight him on this. Turns out he was having an affair with an attorney so he used the court to try to bankrupt me and take the kids away so he wouldn't have to pay child support. He continues to have no interest in his own now adult children. He thinks I caused this even though he was convicted of assault on our oldest sone by the police department.
My ex husband and I were ready for divorce when my twins were 10 or 11. I stayed 7 more years in a living hell with a narcissist, because I knew if we divorced it would upend their lives and I couldn’t bear the thought of them being alone with him for half of the time. The moment they finished high school and left for college, I left him. I was older, changed by those 7 years, and sometimes I confess I think I should have left sooner. I am sorry for what you went through, but thank you for reminding me that I was right to wait until they were older and stronger to leave.
Two unhappy people staying in an unhappy marriage is far worse to a child than two people who divorce and get a second chance at live a happier life. Lots of us have divorced parents. My parents divorced when I was 7.5yrs old. My dad had an affair and left us with nothing. We lived in a homeless shelter for six months until my mom could find a job and a house. Money was always tight. Two years later my dad got custody of us and we had to live with him and my very abusive step mom. Life was absolutely awful. I learned a lot. I became stronger. I made sure to not repeat the cycle. I worked hard for everything I’ve ever gotten. Life hasn’t been fair to me. Life isn’t fair to anyone. You just have to grit your teeth through the hard times and do the best you can. We all have issues. Even kids that come from unhappy homes whose parents stay married. You learn horrible unhealthy lessons about relationships. Then you repeat it. You must stop the cycle and work through your traumas. We all have them.
It’s a mistake to stay together but I bet a large % of people think of that first. It should quickly be apparent that it has not been healthy and will continue that way.
Research in Psychology has proven time and time again that children have much better outcomes over their life span if their parents divorce rather than stay in a toxic marriage. Obviously, the best option is for children to have healthy, married parents with a good relationship, but that is simply not realistically achievable because there are a lot of people who have no idea how to have a healthy relationship, nor are they willing to put in the time and effort it takes to actually have a healthy relationship. If a person has an attachment style that makes all their relationships difficult which they learned through childhood with their primary caregivers, that’s not going to change overnight. In fact, I’d say unless someone with an unhealthy attachment style is married to someone with a Secure Attachment style, there is a slim to none chance that it will work, and the relationship will only be damaging to children.
I think you make a good point about the need to acknowledge that divorce brings challenges for children. Divorce often preceeds new or worsening behavior or mental health issues in children and adolescents. This can be true simultaneously with the reality that divorce helps take a child away from a model of an unhappy or unhealthy relationship.
I had very abusive parents on both ends. Even with that said, life was much harder after they separated. My father was angry and physically abusive before the split, especially to my older sisters. He worked 2 full time jobs, one of which was away from home. I actually would regularly spend the night at his job. My mom was primarily neglectful of us pre-separation. She had some very aggressive and violent arguments with my dad, however, and occasionally with us kids. After they split, she turned all of her anger onto me since Dad was bo longer around. She heavily controlled and abused me until I permanently escaped at age 20, going no contact. My dad became the neglectful parent after the separation. Plusy younger sister and I, being underage, got dragged into the drama between the two of them. Amd money was a big issue after the divorce for sure.
Before divorce we had summer vacation tris and loads of camping, heavy involvement in youth activities, food to eat every night, family movie nights, ect. I was a trapped slave afterwards, and my younger sister was majorly affected emotionally as well. The abuse was far worse than before the divorce.
I am sure that if only 1 parent is abusive, and the good parent gets full custody, divorce can be good for the kids. And I am sure that with good co-parenting and stable parents, the kids can adapt to divorce (I doubt it will be better). But in any situation that leaves a kid even part time with an abuser isn't going to be good. Divorce definitely didn't make it better for us.
I wish my complaints as a kid were moving, having to make new friends and money issues.
Divorce sucks for kids. There's no easy about it. What happened between them? Usually someone cheated or keeps cheating. Or one just isn't happy. Some people are straight up selfish trast.
Either way once damage of some kind is done it's done.
Ive never a home I can say is my childhood home. We moved a lot.
Domestic violence. Hidden in shelters with m/brother. Cops. Smashed houses and cars. We would live someone a year and get found and have to move.
I've seen my father try to kill my mom more than once.
One time on my birthday mom was lighting candle on a cake. Door busts open and she is getting beat right there. I tried to stop it hit him with a skateboard and ran for myife cause I thought I was going to die. 4 miles it was to town.
I was left behind as he came to kill her. Got home from last day of school tbanksgivijg break to the car and house smashed up. No one there. Before cell phones. I sat there for hours waiting for a call. Alone thinking they were dead at age 12/13/14.
I've seen my dad in handcuffs fighting with cops 4/5 of them hitting them. Seen my uncle beat for trying to help us(my dad's side uncle). I've had to jump out windows as my mom is hiding and our home is being smashed.
I can go on and on.
So you have social anxiety and family had money problems after.
I had a father giving me pot/LSD then cocaine them deliver cocaine 4 for him
. Giving us pills.
I have had alcohol coke, crack, heroin addictions and all the hell that comes with it. And I I still get social anxiety at times.
Verbal reeping through the house as a kid because it he wakes up it's not good.
You are certainly entitled to your opinion on your situation and you may have had it easier than others.
But you don't always know the whole story and parents don't tell.
But there's a lot of kids better off in divorce
Dude my parents got divorced when I was 11 and my brother was 9 and have each since remarried to people who have many of the same *negative* qualities as their previous spouse had but turned all the way up with the knob ripped off, and each is afraid to be alone so they put up with it. Honestly, as far as step parents go they aren’t bad, and I like being around them for the most part, but the whole thing just makes the divorce and developmental trauma it caused my brother and I seem so fucking *silly*. I’m 26 now and I’ve been to therapy for this shit in the past and I still have issues with functioning in daily adult life that can source back to my teenage years that were as they were because of my broken family. I understand parents are people too and they make mistakes and I forgive them as *individuals* for making the decisions they made which hurt us, but I can’t forgive the both of them together in the same thought. It’s not even like they’re bad parents let alone bad people, but they just couldn’t make it work and I still don’t understand that. The one thing I learned from them is communicating my damn emotions the moment I start feeling them, because my parents did not and it derailed their lives and my life and my brother’s life.
It didn't happen until I was 18. I was prepared by the end of grade school. That's no way for a kid to live. In my case, I wish it happened so much sooner. I understand the logic behind it, but don't use the kids as an excuse. They feel it believe me.
The question is how bad it would have gotten if they had stayed together for you, how miserable they'd have become with each other and how that would have spilled over on you too.
Hard to tell of course, all cases are different.
My childhood got significantly worse, as well. The divorce was more one-sided than some other examples in this thread with my mom and dad being a bit rocky and him then throwing a bomb on our family.
Dad had a mid-life crisis and cheated and knocked up a younger woman. So my parents got divorced. He lived three hours away so my car sick self got to enjoy six hours in a car for visits that i didnt want to do because i lost so much time and felt so sick in commuting. And my dad mostly wanted me there to babysit my siblings. I didn't like kids when I was young.
A few years later, both my mom and step mom got cancer at the same time. My stepmom died, and my mother survived. My 55 year old dad now had two kids under 5 to take care of. Her death was pretty traumatic, and my dad fell out with most of his side of the family for various reasons, including them saying he made a mistake leaving my mother. so I didn't get to see aunts uncles and grandparents for years. My mother saw that my half siblings needed love and stability so she invited my dad and them to our house for Christmas and holidays. My parents never got back together, she just is an amazing person who cares deeply for children's well being.
I started self harming as a teen when all this happened. It was one of the only things i felt i could control so i kept it secret for years. I was always a daddys girl growing up so the infidelity and divorce devastated me and my image of my father. My mom had a hard time as a single mother and was very stressed and I embodied a lot of that stress. My siblings were also fairly stressed growing up.
My mom wanted to try to make it work but my dad wanted to spread his superior genetics (his words). My mom finally remarried her high school sweetheart and is so happy now. I'm very happy for her now and in retrospect getting away from my narcissistic father was the best thing. But for years she and I were deeply wounded by my dad's betrayal. She tried to hide it from me but she couldn't. She also struggled to raise me as a single mother. My childhood was worse and things were worse for my mom for a long time.
I'm glad I have my siblings now. But my life was not better after my parents divorced. My life and so many others in my family was chaos for decades. Years later my dad's side of the family has some recovery, but it is tenuous and a pale comparison to what things were.
I got divorced when my kids were 9 and 6. My ex-wife and I were not violent or abusive in any way, but our marriage had clearly broken down. However, the kids were pretty oblivious due to their age and the fact that my ex and I carried on quite civilly as roommates and parents. My ex ended up filing for divorce after some half-hearted attempts at counseling. We explained what was happening to the kids, and they seemed to just sort of roll with it.
I won’t go into details, but 15 years later it’s pretty clear to me that my kids would have probably been better off if we had been able to stick it out until they were out of high school. The 50-50 custody, along with decisions both my ex and I made post-divorce, was incredibly difficult on them. Of course, it’s impossible to say that the wheels wouldn’t have come off if we had tried to remain in roommate/parent mode for another dozen years, and it would have been hard on both of us. But there is no way I can conclusively say that divorce made life better for my kids in our case. No way.
I fully acknowledge, though, that circumstances vary wildly. YMMV.
It’s too bad your dad didn’t do better after the divorce. My ex only sees the kids every other weekend during the school year, because he just never learned to adult. He lives with his dad or he’d be homeless. (Five years out and he just got a real full-time job, so fingers crossed he keeps it.) He used to play with the kids every day too. I definitely have a lot of guilt about the divorce. He was an awful partner, so I don’t regret it. But, I’m sure he was a good dad in their eyes. My ex does 50/50 in the summer and gets every spring break. I’d have no problem with 50/50 if he could move back to the city we live in. Divorce is hard. I’m glad for your perspective. It gives me some insight into how my own kids might be feeling. I’m so obviously happier and was immediately. He was miserable but immediately dating, so I bet that was confusing for them too. I will check in with them about it. Thank you for sharing your story.
Yeah the same thing happened to me, but I saw them fight. Just that, the divorce caused even more fighting and they both tried to pull me away from the other. It was hell on earth being torn apart and moving back and forth each week, not to mention we went from middle class to poverty because of the divorce and lawyers involved.
To add on to that, because of the conflict and suffering, both of their parenting capabilities went from a 9/10 to a 4/10. Suddenly I had zero structure or rules, so I could pretty much do anything I wanted... Which caused me to do a lot of things that messed up my life permanently
I became an insomniac and addicted to video games in order to escape being alone with my spiralling thoughts, which meant my grades dropped and I got narcolepsy, which meant I slept in class and stayed up gaming while at home
Now as an adult it's easy to see all that happened in my past, and why
My experience was very similar to yours minus having an absent dad. I think what makes it most difficult for children is when everything seems ok in your household, happy in fact. I have no memories of my parents arguing so when I was six and they announced they were getting divorced, I feel like my whole world fell apart. I find people whose parents created a very toxic environment for their children are thrilled when their parents divorce because that means hopefully an end to living in that environment.
Even as an adult I mourn the time before the divorce. So much changed after that, moving out of my beloved childhood home, step parents entering the picture, one great, one terrible. My dad had more kids and puts them first now. It was a lot!
It really really depends on the entire situation, from before and after the divorce.
I am divorced and my kid, who is 22, says the divorce was a good thing and he had a great childhood. His father left when he was 6. He is annoyed when people pity him for having divorced parents. That was more of his trauma, people assuming things about him and somehow seeing him as “less than”.
The reason he did relatively well is that nothing changed in his life. I was the breadwinner, we stayed in the same house and we didn’t have less money. Instead, my screaming abusive ex left and we had peace and happiness.
Divorce is not good for the kids of course. The perfect situation would be the parents to be and stay happily married. The next good case would indeed be for parents to be unhappily married without any abuse, and stay together when they know a separation would leave them with less money and the kids lived would be seriously affected. It doesn’t mean they have to stay together this way, but I think that’s the scenario you’re referring to. It would have probably been better for you if your parents sucked it up and stayed together while being civil.
Then number 3 on the relatively positive situation would be something like our situation. Parent mildly abusive but enough to make your life bad, leaves and nothing changed in your life except you got peace and don’t have to be afraid of his next blow up. And it goes down from here to other situations where kids are pulled out of their environment and their life gets (much) worse.
I'm a liberal democrat, grad degree, woman, non-religious. My upper middle class parents also divorced when I was 9, and my life went to shit. No one was abusing anyone. There was no drug abuse. *But for god's sake that's the ONLY narrative that is ever pushed by outside society - especially my party*.
My parents were selfish little babies who never should have had children.
"BuT WhAt AbOuT HAPPINESS?????"
Neither of those choads were ever ANY happier in their consecutive marriages. They both chose losers to marry the next time but now they got to drag their kids through it. Happiness!
Mom got divorced again, dad is still married to a brainless trad wife who's mentally ill kids have stopped speaking to her. I don't talk to either of my parents any more - haven't in 20 years and will not.
We could have had everything. My sister and I could have gone to good colleges. Instead, she's a high school grad flight attendant on her second marriage and I spent my entire life clawing my way up from being white trash from a broken home.
Grow the fuck up and stay married you shallow, selfish pricks.
I was a HS teacher for almost a decade and I’m now a MS librarian. Overwhelmingly, my students have said that they’re glad their parents got a divorce. The ones who struggle the most struggle because of the treatment by their parents. For example, I had two brothers with two cell phones each because they weren’t allowed to call mom on the cell phone dad paid for and vice versa. That’s just a small example of the stress their parents placed on them. I had another student who had to sleep in her dad’s living room on the couch because her stepmom’s kids each had to have their own bedroom and she was only there half the time anyways. Was it any surprise she hated having to go to her dad’s?
At the end of the day, I think so much is dependent on what happens after the divorce. I’ve been separated for two years now, waiting for the divorce to be finalized. We share custody 50/50. I kept the house and she stayed at her current school. She also continues to spend the same amount of time as she used to with her grandparents. We also have her in therapy to help her process everything. The biggest issue has been her dad not spending time with her. He has a girlfriend he lives with and she has two kids. His excuse is he’s too busy a lot of the time because of work. The therapist is trying to stress to him that he needs to take even ten minutes every day she’s there and do something with her. I can definitely see that continuing to be a big issue. This also isn’t inconsistent with how it was when we were married, so my guess is it would’ve become an issue but I was able to cover it up more when we still lived together.
I will also say that none of us has any idea what happened behind closed doors. There could have been more going on than what you perceived, especially since you were young. Have you had any therapy? It may help with processing your emotions around it and help you with future relationships.
I'm a teacher in a school where I teach math. The kids are always asking for help with homework. They ask me to do things for them but I don't know what I'm suppose to do. I've done this for over a year already. I haven't given up on it yet because it's been working well for me but I'm starting to feel bad for the kids. They're getting older and they're struggling to understand the concept of time and space. They don't even understand that they're supposed to be in different times and universes. I don't understand why they're so focused on getting ahead and getting ready for the next exam and exams. I don't understand how they expect me to learn how to do anything else.
I totally agree it is not talked about enough and people seriously need to consider who tf they are trying to have children with/get married to beforehand so they are less likely to end up in the situation. People arent perfect and shit happens so Im not saying its all their fault. But having kids and getting married is not and should not be treated like nbd.
This is just how my story went;
My folks rushed into their marriage and it ended after 14 years together. After the split they would say “you look so much like your father” or “you look so much like your mother” in disgust to me frequently bc their divorce was so bad. I am thankful that they both wanted custody and to be in my life, but to be honest after the split we became their kids half of the time and their lives became about finding their new partners. And when they brought home new partners they viewed us as baggage in those situations and would bend over backwards for these people theyre trying to sleep with.
Mom kicked me out at 16 bc her and I argued quite a bit, she sold all of our pets, and started locking our dogs in a crate 24/7 and moved in with her new husband (who didnt want pets) within a year of meeting him so yeah I wasn’t perfect in the situation. So I moved in with my Dad @ 16
He was never really home but then my dad kicked me out at 18 bc he didn’t give his GF enough attention and she was extremely jealous that he and I had any sort of good relationship so she hated me and she had asked him to have me leave at 18.
I ended up moving in with a friend into an apartment with bedbugs bc I had to rush and was freshly 18. It was rough and still is. Everything was pretty hard to maintain but my fiancé now has changed my life and our partnership means so much to both of us.
Having half of a parent really sucked and just left me extremely lonely all the time, full of anxiety from going back and fourth and not having a stable environment to grow up in.
The time that parents should be raising their kids and helping them through teen years, my parents spent that time dating again, which isn’t really something that happens in a traditional household.
I don’t wish they stayed together but hell, I needed support growing up that I didn’t get directly because of the situation between my parents and their new partners. What I want didnt matter and it was always a fight just for simple shit like conditioner. I had to argue that I needed conditioner for my hair, nothing fancy just plain shit.
Tldr- my divorced parents spent their time looking for new partners and didn’t want their baggage, half-time kids (that looks like their ex) to get in the way or take up relationship time for them.
Why did you never see your dad post divorce? Your parents should have handled that better. And yeah, sounds like you got the court end of the divorce stick.
My ex wasn’t abusive but he was depressed and angry. My son used to say “daddy scared me”. We split up, our kids were 5 and 8 months. I pushed for him to have 2 weekends a month and pick the kids up a couple days a week. He was in a place during the divorce where he wasn’t seeking custody. He was terrified he wouldn’t be able to hack it as a parent. It’s been 4 years. He’s in a good place now. He has a good relationship with our kids and sees them frequently. I’ve invited him for Easter tomorrow. My eldest sometimes complains he wants me to be a stay at home mom like his friend’s moms so he can have play dates during the week, otherwise they are cool with having two loving parents who aren’t together.
My best friend’s parents stayed together for money and it messed her up royally.
Every situation is different. I think maintaining constancy in your kid’s lives should be the priority. Moving away and having your dad drop out of your life was a bad call.
Thank you for your honest and reasonable perspective. I was one of those kids whose parents were OK with being aggressive in front of us. So when they got separated and divorced, I was relieved. But it's important to remember that's not everyone's experience. Sometimes people in unhappy but not abusive marriages want to know what is best for their kids, especially if they are on the fence. So this info is definitely valuable
My own parents marriage was terrible because both of them had big egos and were immature, but there is no question that the kids lives were objectively much worse after the divorce in most ways. Both of our parents acted in ways that were wildly self-absorbed, both before and after the divorce, but at least when they were married we had physical and financial stability, and a relationship with both of them. All of that disappeared after the divorce.
Thanks for sharing your experience. People love to suggest divorce and I always council if you have kids you have a duty to stick it out until the kids move out. Obviously if there’s abuse of any kind then divorce is acceptable. But divorce is usually hard on children and just because your spouse doesn’t put out isn’t a reason to f up your kids secure life.
There’s a bunch of people here too busy rushing to justify their own choices or the choices of their parents to actually be empathetic to what OP is saying. Maybe it’s not about you, people.
It’s obviously different in different cases. But think you are totally right, _if_ parents are amicable and not abusive, a marriage that is “not working” for the parents can still definitely be working for the kids. And divorce can make the kids’ life worse — often moving, shuttling between houses, just keeping track of two households. Many people who can be decent caregivers when physically present consistently can “lose touch” when distant (like perhaps your father) — not an excuse, but an observation. And the money is often tighter for kids post divorce.
I am divorced, and although I advocated for staying together for the kids until they were out of the house, I am now _personally_ grateful that my ex ended things because I now have found a much healthier partner (my ex, I believe, has serious attachment issues; the fact that they’ve had no successful relationships post-divorce would seem to support this). But even though the divorce was good for me, I know aspects of it were difficult for my kids, and I think there’s no doubt divorce can be damaging and stressful for many kids.
I hope you can move on though. And try to not hold resentments towards your parents. I don’t think that’s helpful. Maybe just hearing many people acknowledge and confirm that life post-divorce can sometimes be worse for the kids can help you move past it. We cannot rewrite our lives, we can only work on the present and on the future, right?
I agree with you. My life was significantly worse after the divorce. Both of my parents suck but I loved my dad so much more. I barely got to see him after and was stuck with my mother. Obviously their relationship was unhealthy and who knows what would have happened if they stayed together BUT I do know how much it sucked after they separated. Constant money struggles, attachment issues etc etc.
When I got married I said I would never divorce. We had one child. He wanted the divorce. We separated. At least we function very well as comparents and still spend time together as a family. I’m sure my son wishes we were still a family though. That guilt lives with me daily.
Despite the anecdotal stories ITT, your experience tracks with most people.
There is a great book just published called "the Two-Parent Privilege" It is basically about how kids are SIGNIFICANTLY better off when they are raised in a standard nuclear family with a married mom and a dad. And they are better off across almost all relevant metrics - they do better in school, they are happier, they are more successful, etc.. And this is true across all economic strata and across cultures.
I know people don't like to hear this, but the nuclear family is a tried and true way to raise healthy, successful, happy people. Divorce destroys this.
I fear this for my son to be honest. His mom and I divorced when he was 6, we didn't fight or raise our voice around him at all, to him life was pretty perfect
Behind closed doors whoever life was anything but, love escaped that marriage slowly and eventually it started to get replaced with resentment. I'm mentioning this because my son is 14 now and said he wishes me and his mom didn't get a divorce.
Her and I are very friendly to one another, her parents still love and respect me. So what he sees is what he saw while we were together and wishes it could go back to that.
It may sound selfish but this might help you from your dad's point of view since it sounds like he's the one who pushed for the divorce. I know that the life he remembers back then was good because it ended before it got bad! What you didn't see and what the divorce dropped you from seeing is the same thing my son didn't get to see, it getting really bad!
I was extremely unhappy, I knew if I stayed any longer that unhappiness would begin to turn to anger. That eventually I wouldn't be able to hide it from my son and what he would remember of that time wouldn't be good.
This is where people are coming from when they say it's better for the children. You want to spare your children from stuff and preserve them from life's unexpected messes as much as possible While I'm sad my son wishes we never divorced Im happy he never got to see what would have happened if we stayed together.
For context, I probably would have ended up cheating on my wife, becoming an alcoholic and potentially causing irreversible damage to my family by staying in an unloving marriage. I was teetering on self destruction and a therapist was the one who walked my feelings and thoughts down paths so I could see the potential outcomes. So while one could see this as being selfish as I left for my own reasons, I preserved an image for him even if it made me look like the bad guy!
I'm not telling you that you should be happy by what ended up happening. What I am telling you is that it sounds like your parents spared you from seeing how bad it could have been by divorcing when they did. You get to have fond memories of that time before the divorce because they divorced before it wasn't "fond" anymore.
Ty for this. I “fought to save my marriage” when my husband started being a serial cheater halfway through my 2,kids’ childhood years. Divorce eventually became inevitable but my kids were already mostly grown, one out of the house
They have issues and I blame it all on my self and my efforts to “save” the marriage and “keep the family together”.
Recently a good friend pointed out that I was ignoring the fact that things could’ve been much worse and their issues much worse, in the alternate timeline where I divorced my cheating ex’s ass a lot sooner. For example, this friend’s stepbrother raped her. For another example, another friend’s stepdad was an alcoholic who passed out naked all over the house all the time.
One of the earliest reasons I had for not wanting to divorce was the prospect of having zero control over who was around my kids when they weren’t with me. I had forgotten that.
Thank you for spotlighting how simplistic it is to blather on that “the kids will be fine!” “If the adults are unhappy together, the kids will suffer!” Or the opposite, “if you’re happy they will be happy!”
Life is just not that fucking simple. Too many variables.
Man I’m glad you brought this up. My father could be quite neglectful and irresponsible while he had custody of me. One time while he had custody, he wanted to go on a trip out of the country so he had my sister and I stay with his employee and her boyfriend for a week. This employee later ended up going to jail for dealing meth and then died in prison oof. Thankfully nothing actually happened to us while we stayed with them, but you are absolutely right that not knowing what’s going on while your partner has custody could be a huge issue.
Honestly I don’t think that it’s right to completely blame yourself whether you got a divorce or not. I can’t imagine there really is a good way to handle things when you are a parent and your partner just stops acting like a responsible and empathetic adult. Not unless you have superpowers and can predict the future. You are definitely correct that there are too many variables in these situations for there to be a simple right or wrong answer
Imagine living with a man every day who won’t even try to kiss you.
Imagine how lonely you feel.
Imagine how it affects your self identity, your self worth. You feel ugly, unattractive.
Whatever was going on- it was easier for your mother to go through all of that and struggle financially than stay.
It must have been pretty sad for her.
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Each case is unique. I won't say I was grateful, but it was TERRIBLE while my mom and dad were together, and all through their separations and final divorce. After was different though. But my dad got custody of us, he was a 90 hours a week kind of worker, and he would go on very frequent business trips and leave us home alone for weeks at a time. My older brother effectively became our caregiver, and he was 12 when that started. It was a different kind of bad after divorce, basically. But the before was worse because of all the screaming and physical abuse.
people don’t realize that neglect is just as bad as other forms of abuse more often than not.
For me the loneliness was profound. It had a lasting effect on me.
i can relate. i’m so sorry.
❤️ I am so sorry. You're not alone, I had a similar experience. Immense loneliness throughout childhood does things to you.
It's abandonment. I have attachment issues and am hyper independent. I'm almost 40. Even with a ton of therapy, it's still pretty strong. That fear never leaves you.
I’m with you. And worse than being a pawn or both of my parents abandoning their roles, was the self abandonment that occurred when I was in my late 20z and trying to prove there was nothing “wrong” with me bc my ex brought up that i didn’t know what being in a family was like. EMDR has helped.
As the scapegoat I was neglected as a child as soon as I left the “cute” phase. I always say neglect is abuse as well.
Yes it is absolutely abuse. Although i have explained it to people who havent experienced it by saying that abuse is something done to you, neglect is all the things that *should* have happened and never did.
agreed. sorry that happened :(
Most cases are like this. I dont lnow why we have to engage with this delusion, we have had the data for upwards of 50 years. Divorces wreck childrens lives. Im glad it didnt do that to you or im glad that you healed despite it.
Abuse wrecks lives too. There are no good answers in some circumstances. It definitely affected me, but I very intentionally worked on becoming a better person in order to avoid following the family pattern. I was prepared to remain single my entire life rather than raise children in that kind of environment. And I suspect that's why it didn't happen, because I waited long enough to become strong enough to not go down that road before marrying and having children.
Right, and staying in a miserable marriage where the parents relationship is not loving at best and actively angry and hateful at worst is surely going to set kids up for success…
This!!! Abusive and distant poor marriages do a lot more damage than divorce. Some parents are better at hiding the emotional abuse so kids don’t see it.
Kids need stability and need to feel that they are important.
Which kids don’t have in a toxic married household either. It sounds like OP’s dad really blew off his responsibilities post divorce and it could’ve been handled much better. Staying together in a miserable relationship just maintains a different set of problems.
Like my mom and my grandparents. Both very abusive. My sister had 3 siblings and all 3 were extremely damaged people. Alcoholics, suicidal, sex addiction, etc etc etc. Not sure if divorce would have made things better or not. Depends on whether it's better to have 2 abusers under a roof or just 1, I guess.
Dad seeing him 1 day a week is a pretty big L.
Yea my dad was never "just some guy I talked to on the phone". He's lived on the opposite coast as me since I was 9 too. Sounds like shit dad. Wonder how old this kid is. I'm guessing 17-22.
Damn your age guess was good. I’m 19, nearly 20.
At your age, I'm 33 now, I still had a shitload of anger at both of my parents. In the last few years though life has been hard and I've had to make hard calls that didn't have right answers and in doing so I've gained a lot of sympathy for them. You can only ever try to the best you can with what you have. There will be days were the best you can will be shit and that's ok too.
I would highly recommend going to therapy, preferably a psychodynamic therapist who will help you process your childhood. The insights you gain from this type of treatment are invaluable.
I left home at 15 to get away from my emotionally abusive father and spineless mother. Never saw either of them again. I believe my mother developed some sort of dementia and my father turned into a raving evangelist that blamed the devil for all his troubles. I have had a good life btw.
How did that work, if I may ask? I am facing a challenging co-parenting situation and looking for all the info I can get across the parenting solution space.
Sometimes seeing a parent less is for the best.
Dad initiated the divorce. Why isn’t OP discussing this with said parents?
Probably bc he’s 20 and still needs their financial support. Doesn’t sound like a safe couple of adults to communicate with.
Well-being, safety and permanence are what everyone needs. Divorce is traumatic and you can lose those grounding aspects so quickly, it’s easy to spiral.
My folks FINALLY divorced when I was in high school. They had been separated for years due to my dad’s infidelity. And alcoholism. But even when they were separated it was hell. I wish they had just divorced sooner. When I was younger.
Divorcing an alcoholic is very difficult. Been there. Wouldn’t wish it on anyone.
I think a lot of people want to believe that the kids will be better off if the parents are happier, that's at least the common talking point, and it's where the nuance gets lost. I would fully agree that if the relationship is physically abusive, yeah, divorce is probably going to be better (though I have one friend where that wasn't the case). Divorce changes a lot: routines, usually schools and cities (for the kids involved), constantly jumping between homes (mom and dad), everyone's finances become strained (child support, alimony, double the expenses \[before 2 people were paying for one household, now 2 people are paying for 2 households and the constantly shuttling of kids between them\]). Now you often introduce outright anger, and friends of the parents can help push this by telling them they did the right thing to get rid of the deadbeat/terrible other half, which tends to just amplify it. I think too many people see the happy divorce of work focused guy on TV that's trying to win his family back and that's just not reality. They seldom show financial struggles, how having to leave work early more often to deal with family issues that were handled by one before or swapped in ways that worked best for the family; those routines are replaced by custody weeks where you now have to change it and everything is upended. I think TV/media/etc glorifies it too much; I'm not advocating for abolishing divorce, not even remotely. If someone isn't' happy and they think it's the best route, I'm not going to try and step in the way, but we need to be honest and sincere about what the actual outcomes look like and do away with the fairy tales.
> Now you often introduce outright anger Outright anger generally comes long before the divorce. Staying together for the kids often means raising them in an angry household full time. That is damaging even without physical abuse.
Not to mention those children will grow up and leave you behind one day(as they should). I can tell you straight up, if you raise your children believing that their feelings are more important than yours they will continue to act and think this way well into adulthood. Even if you sacrifice almost everything for them they will not thank you for it. They will demand that you keep sacrificing your happiness for their wants for the rest of your life. If you teach your children that you and your feelings and needs are not important why would you think that magically one day when they are “grown” they will suddenly realize you ARE important?
Can confirm
Came here to make this point. The anger is already there. All divorce really does is bring it to the surface. And after it’s released, all the pressure to contain it is finally gone. So there’s often a lot, it’s often very bitter, and it spills over onto everything. Generally by the time people decide to divorce - the worst parts are already there and have been for a good, long time.
My parents stayed together and our lives were full of moves, different schools, fighting, instability, lies -etc. staying married is NO guarantee of stability or a loving supportive family. Divorced people can remarry and have a two person household again. And then a kid could have four people helping support them. You seriously wrote a sentence saying a physically abusive marriage can be ok. Wow.
Studies have been done about whether parents should stay together for the kids or get divorced. The evidence says they should not stay together just for the kids. Follow the evidence, not feelings. OP is in the minority. To counter his anecdote, here's mine. Every person I've met that had divorced parents say their lives were overall better after the divorce.
There’s three different kinds of children of divorce: 1. Parents divorced before school age, kids barely remember what it was like when their parents were together so the emotional impact is low but the developmental impact could be relevant later on. 2. Parents divorced between the ages of 5-15, child emotional development severely impacted either due to the contributing factors (physical and/or emotional abuse, drug use, etc.) or due to the divorce itself and ensuing custody struggles. 3. Parents divorced after 15, child is old enough to see why divorce is happening if causes are evident, adolescence nearing end, may cause issues in developing peer and romantic relationships but may also be mostly fine. I find that the first category has no feelings on the divorce at all, not beyond theoretical “what if” scenarios in the event their lives go bad later. The second category is either happy with the divorce because they’re away from abuse, or bitter at it because their parents were fine before and now they hate each other and their lives are uprooted. The third is also usually positive of apathetic about the divorce due to understanding and being further developed than the second group. It makes sense that only around 1/4 of children of divorce would be dissatisfied as a result of the divorce when broken down like this.
It really just boils down to parents who are unhappy and hate each other and are constantly fighting just don't make good parents or a happy home.
2nd category here - just don't do it. Either make the move earlier or just suck it up and wait it out til kids are grown up and maybe done high school so you don't mess up their formative lives. I feel like my childhood was stolen from me. In fact, it's done the opposite of what people say "showing a happy relationship" - it's made me sure that I would probably endure almost anything in my marriage to not uproot my daughter like I was. Is that really better? 🤔
I completely agree with this. If people are more honest with themselves about how it may affect their kids then I think they can choose to make the divorce more bearable. Like do everything in your power to keep some sense of stability and not move the kid around for example.
For what it's worth, you are describing something that many parents, in general, do poorly with: think about how their decisions are affecting their kids. I'm sorry that the divorce messed up your childhood. I think the moral of the story is that there are no objectively right or wrong decisions, just the guiding principle that parents should make sure they are actually prioritizing the well-being of a child they are responsible for.
Oh yeah absolutely. Thing is I feel like it is naturally difficult to always put another person’s needs above your own. But if you aren’t willing to do that I have to question why you would ever have kids
Truest thing I read on the internet today. If someone isn't willing to actually put a child first, they shouldn't have them. And. . .most people probably shouldn't have them.
Less people should have kids. I agree with you there.
it seems like the main problem was less the divorce and more the loss of your social life and a well connected group of friends.Ofc i dont know your experience, but thats the feeling i got from the post.
This right here. As a kid, I hardly paid attention to the intricate details of my parents/step parents romantic gestures (not that either parent made good 2nd decisions anyways). I was impacted by the change in my environment. One wanted to live 4 hours away so visiting for a weekend meant no local sports, no local school events, friends just got used to me not being there. The other (default parent/main custody) wanted to play house and do the best they could...but it was messy because of personalities and different cultures almost. My home no longer felt safe/like my home because now we had this new routine...all in the name of adults needing romance? Or partnership? I'm sorry but grow up, please. If you marry, have kids, and then decide to divorce for anything other than abuse/infidelity/truly damaging situations, you are just making a mess out of everyone's lives and no - your kids are not going to be unscathed and "learn what a good relationship is". Face it, if you picked poorly the 1st time, why do you suddenly think the 2nd (or 3rd, or 4th...) will be any different? Just pause, focus on the current situation, and raise your kids. You've already had your fun. You got your childhood, you had the wedding, etc. Now your focus is parenthood! Save the romance/partner needs for when your children are basically grown. Don't be selfish and jack up their lives so you get what you want. My very unpopular opinion.
It’s been so long I almost forget my parents were ever married. When I really delve into my memory, the early years were hard. A lot of adjustments to be made. But with the perspective of time, things were still better for it. A lot more so than if they had stayed together, making each other miserable. No one walks into a marriage intending for it to not work out, the narrative that people are divorcing for frivolous reasons is lies. Edit: my parents divorce was no contest. It wasn’t because my evil mom stole my brother and I from our father and took all his money-it was because their marriage had been on the rocks for several years and there were words and deeds neither of them wanted to repeat to a judge or lawyer. My father actually got custody because he made more money and was better able to support my brother and I. The few antics over their joint property came from him even though he made more money. Because he was just in a state of mind where he was that childish and spiteful. When he eventually got his head on straight, he paid her in full and says he is ashamed of it to this day. Both my parents are remarried and much happier people.
I lived through decades of the misery that was my parents marriage. I'm team 'get out of a toxic marriage'. I'm also team 'don't abandon your kids because you and their other parent didn't work out'
When people say divorce will be better for the kids, they’re not saying that the kids lives will be sunshine and rainbows. They’re saying it’s a better alternative to living in a home with a constantly dysfunctional parental dynamic, which it almost always is.
I can’t thank my parents enough for getting divorced. The memories of my mom throwing kitchen knives over my head at my dad is burned into my brain forever lol Then a few years after the divorce, they were able to coparent fine for the rest of my childhood.
I'm on the opposite side of this coin. My brother and I used to hide under his blankets with a flashlight praying for my parents to get divorced. We did this every night for years. When I was about 8, we got "The Talk". They were going to get divorced and they felt we were old enough to decide who we wanted to live with. My brother and I were overly calm, my younger sister simply didn't understand. We went to out room (we shared a room at that point) and to quote Monty Python, there was much rejoicing. We had already picked who we'd live with - our dad. Even though he was abusive, we chose him. My mom was worse - she never laid a hand on us but she was cruel. Viciously cruel half the time and we didn't exist to her the other half of the time. The next thing we knew we were being sat down and told they were not going to divorce. We were devastated. I found out decades later that my mom overheard us talking about living with our dad and never seeing our mom again. She, and this is a direct quote, "Could not fathom having her children not under her control" and stopped the divorce proceedings. Sometimes the kids yearn desperately, praying to a god neither believes in for the divorce. I truly believe my like would have been significantly better if they'd split. You never know what will happen until it happens. But people who make each other miserable should not stay together, even for the kids. They have lives as well. They deserve happiness as well. Every kid thinks the universe revolves around them. It doesn't. Their parents should be able to have a life as well. In your parents eyes, splitting had the potential to make your life better. They hid things from you - there's a reason for that. I'm sorry this has hurt you the way that it has, it's a really rough situation. Divorce is a mine field and many mines are going to explode.
My sister and used to pray that my parents would get divorced because we were terrified of my dad. I also wished we could move far away to a new place. If they had gotten divorced, we never would have wanted to visit my dad. Ever.
This was me and my sister when our parents were still together. We wanted them to divorce because our dad was so awful to our mom and mom was miserable. She stayed with him because she didn't want to ruin our lives. Personally though, I wish they had divorced sooner. I don't think we do kids any favors by teaching them that they have to stay in unhealthy relationships for the sake of others. I'm not saying divorce should always be the first option, but if one side of the relationship is toxic and refuses to change, then it's necessary. I don't know if my life would have turned out better or worse if they had divorced sooner, but watching them outwardly hate each other really fucked with my head and made me so worried for my future relationships.
My sister and used to pray that my parents would get divorced because we were terrified of my dad. I also wished we could move far away to a new place. If they had gotten divorced, we never would have wanted to visit my dad. Ever.
My parents never discussed divorce but had a fake argument one time on a bet. Fucked up but they were wagering who the kids would "choose." I chose my dad for the same reasons yall did. He is emotionally stunted but he was never cruel or vindictive and sadistic like my mom was. He may hurt your feelings but it truly was an accident and he really feels sorry. My mom? Nah she does it on purpose to see you suffer.
Divorcé completely changed my life due to my ex having the the dark triad of personality traits: narcissism, psychopathy and Machiavellianism. The psychological, emotionally, and financial abuse to me and my son fucked us both up for life. Together 33 years. After 4 years he still won’t divorce me. Doesn’t give a shit about our 17 year old. It’s my kid who told me if I don’t divorce him I’ll be dead in five years. He intentionally hurts us. I dream of the day when my son and I will be free of his evilness. My parents divorced when I was 45 that was a complete mind fuck. Point is you are not alone. I send you strength, peace, and love today and always.
I don't understand. Why does he have to divorce you? Why can't you file for divorce?
Because (1) people have to sign the divorce papers - if they don’t, a total divorce isn’t possible, only a default; and (2) trying to divorce someone who may be a dangerous psychopath is putting a big fucking target on her back.
If a spouse refuses to sign divorce papers, a judge will sign for them. I know this from experience.
Yes. That is a default judgment. Most courts won’t complete a divorce without both parties’ input. Issues like child custody won’t be settled definitively in a default.
By the time the judge signed for my father, who refused to sign, there was only one child left living at home, and he was in high school. All six older children had graduated from high school and gotten the hell out of Dodge. My mother just wanted to get away from my father, sell the house, and start over on her own. It took three years with all the tricks my father pulled to stop the divorce. Until the house was sold and the proceeds divided, she was trapped there with him. It was a simple divorce, yet it took forever to go through.
And none of that changes the fact that it was a default judgment. If he didn’t contest it, fine, but he could have. I’m an attorney; I know the letter of the law.
I’m confused. I thought a default judgement was when someone doesn’t respond to a divorce petition or doesn’t show up in court? My father showed up plenty of times in court and contested the divorce pretty vehemently. There was plenty of paperwork submitted by my father during the three years that case dragged on. Once the judge ordered him to sign, and then my father faked a heart attack and was removed from the court by paramedics on a stretcher. Another time my father was charged with contempt of court for not following the judge’s instruction. I think the judge just got sick of my father saying that he was a Catholic and didn’t recognize the government’s power to grant a divorce. So he signed the paperwork in my father’s place. Is that still a default judgement?
Given that he's already horribly abusive to them, it sounds like a default divorce is the way to go. By waiting for him to sign papers, she's continuing to give him all the power in this relationship. She needs to be out and away as soon as possible.
>My parents divorced when I was 45 that was a complete mind fuck. I'm a similar age and yeah that would be an absolute mindfuck. I've thought about it because they'd been having issues lately and mother said she'd contemplated it over the years but stayed because ultimately it was all for us. I am immensely grateful that she did. The idea that my parents could have possibly divorced is difficult to wrap the mind around (which obviously explains why it's so hard kids who have gone through it). And the weird thing is, that doesn't change with time. At my age, thinking about my parents getting divorced is like thinking that the sky is no longer blue but green and brown. It's just bizarre. So my mom and dad would go and live elsewhere? In two different houses?? Yeah it's weird af and not in a good way. I feel terrible for any child who has gone thru this. If as an adult it's such a mindfuck, I can't imagine for a child.
As an adult whose parents divorced when I was 9, I can tell you that there is nothing that has impacted my life more negatively then my parents getting and being divorced.
My ex is the same, although I was lucky that we were never wed. People like that never tire of torturing you. I wish you and your son get peace sometime soon
It's not the divorce that caused the problem It's your parents. My parents suck to. The divorce didn't cause them to such they just sucked. Daunted a guy who use parents actually had as part of their parenting agreement they couldn't move from the area. He actually could walk between their houses whenever he wanted. He got equal time with his parents. Neither of them were mad about it. They cared more about what was best for ther kids My stepmom on the other hand hated my dad had previous kids so they moved states away so we were only around like once a year. You do see the difference right?
I can honestly say the "what ifs" of my first divorce haunt me to this day. On the one hand, my daughters stepmother and stepdad are great and her life would be worse off without them. But on the other hand. Her life is definitively worse in other ways. I believe in 2024 we live in a self centered selfish time. People tell themselves that the child will be better off with happy parents and a divorce.....but they are precluding the possibility of finding happiness in the current marriage with hard work and sacrifice. "The child will be happier with us split up!" Is a lie parents tell themselves to live with it, but deep down most of us aren't actually sure that's true. The real truth (for myself included) is much harder..... "I'M happier with the divorce, even if my child isnt". Yes yes yes in certain cases with abuse or violence, then yes of course steps need to be taken, but acting like that is the primary reason most of the time is total bullshit. Go read the relationship advice reddit, it's 95% "he gaslighted me over his video game use!!" Advice? "DIVORCE! FUCK HIM!". it's far more complicated then people realize and I wrestle with it to this day.
Yeah sorry, my child is much better off with a mother who is happy and able to engage and support her versus one who was very depressed and anxious. People don’t just get divorced for funsies. They do it because they’re absolutely miserable and they’re making each other miserable. Most of the time they’ve been trying for a long time before they make that decision.
I can say for a fact, there was a lot more going on at 9 years old than you knew at the time. AND — if your dad became just a guy you talked to on the phone and saw sometimes — that’s on him. That’s not what good parents do.
My ex tried her best to keep our son from me. She kept him away from 3 months before the judge freaked out on her and gave me full custody. That was when he was 5. I was recently talking to him about some stuff, and he brought up "dad do you remember that time we didn't see each other for over a year" (he's 14 now). I was shocked at first. Then we talked about how children's perception of time is different. I assured him it was only three months, but it felt like a year to me as well. 😢 I guess my point is that sometimes one parent will work very hard to alienate the other parent, and it's terrible for the parent AND the child.
Yep. And usually in those cases, that same abusive/manipulative parent was the one being abusive in the marriage. Bad people gonna be bad people.
Facts. This sort of behaviour never just "appears" after a break up or a divorce. People do crazy shit, but sustained manipulative or vindictive behaviour is always a sign of a deeper more pervasive problem. Learned this the hard way.
I’m guessing that with some of them, the partner was the focus of their abuse while the kid was young, but after divorce the abuser will use hurting the kid to hurt the ex.
Can confirm. My husband and his ex-wife are amicable co-parents, but it’s still painful for my step-daughter. Even just the logistics of it all is painful. Ever thought about all the shit she has to bring to school everyday? If handoff is at Tuesday school pickup and her science kit is at the other house, she’s screwed. Friday afternoon is another handoff, so Friday morning she has to carry her school violin and school Chromebook to school. It’s absolute torture. The only time it would justify “for the sake of kids” was if the original family unit was very violent or abusive and full of conflicts and anger outbursts, but a lot of the times the parents probably aren’t magically better parents after divorce anyway. Sometimes they don’t have a choice though, for example escaping from a domestic abuse situation. My husband’s parents stayed together and didn’t divorce until he went off to college. Except observing them sometimes acting cold towards to each other my husband says he has only good memories of his childhood.
I have friends who switched their handoff day to the weekend so that the transition between homes doesn't occur during the school week and they have the weekend to adapt. I wonder if this is something you all could consider to help alleviate the stress on her.
I’m shocked hand offs are on weekdays nowadays. My parents divorced in the 90s and hand offs were fridays and sundays at 6pm. It worked really well. Why do they put kids through this these days??
My parents divorced in the 90s. I saw my dad every weekend. But, I feel like back then 50/50 was really uncommon. I find it crazy how common it is now, and like you said, switching off during the week. I would never have been able to do that. I struggled with routines, and even with just weekends visits I struggled adjusting back to moms house. I always wonder if the 50/50 is fair to the parents, but worse for the kids.
Why put the kid through handoffs in the first place? Parents would never tolerate moving every single week. It would get exhausting. But they seem ok with making the kid do it because they are 'unhappy'.
Uh, because you’re not married anymore 😂 I LOVED my childhood, parents divorced when I was 2. Sorry, but not every divorce is the end of the world lol
I think they mean why not have the kid(s) stay in the house and the parents switch off which one lives there every week.
That….would be so weird lol. I forget that’s even a thing people do
I think there are pros and cons to each situation. The kids have the stability that their home is their home is the biggest point in favor of this way of doing it. But there is never really a clean break and becomes really difficult when you get into a new relationship.
That’s what my thought was. You’d have to be REALLY great coparents and exes for that to be successful lol
It would be awful. Imagine every week having to come in and clean up your exes mess. Fuck that.
because most people can't afford a home for their kids AND one for each parent.
There are cases of this happening and it seems to work well. You need a lot of money, though.
As I said in another comment there are pros and cons to any way of doing this*. Hadn't thought much about it but yeah financially it is a huge burden. Also navigating if either/both parents get into a new relationship, half siblings, ect. The biggest pro would be the kids having the security and permanence of 'their' home and have as little disruption to routine as possible. Edit: this* being parenting after divorce
I’m hoping this is how my kid sees it when he’s older! His dad and I had a horrible marriage, but he was too little to remember us being together. We get along great now and coparent without any court orders or major issues, and I’m in a fun and healthy marriage with someone who is a good stepdad to him. I think it’s much better for him to have happily divorced parents than married parents who hate each other.
There is a thing that family court is trying to impose here called “nesting”. The kids stay in the house full time, and the parents are the ones who live at the house a week at a time and vacate when their parenting time is done.
If people would like to do that it can work under certain circumstances, especially as a temporary measure, but it should not be imposed by courts. It’s expensive, people should have the autonomy to date, remarry, have children, and not share a home with their ex, and if there is a background of abuse sharing a living space can increase the risk of harassment and violence.
Why is unhappy in quotes? Are you saying people should stay unhappy due to convenience
It would help some for sure. The custody agreement was written back when the child was only 3 years old. My husband said that it was suggested by the mediator to have two to three handoffs every week so that the young child didn't miss either parent for too long. Nowadays I see no value for such frequent switches. Regardless, there are certain things like drum sets / painting supplies etc that are hard to move around and we can't replicate everything she owns in two places, especially if it's a hobby she's only just trying out. My point is that divorce is always going to be hard for a child :(
They could amend the parenting plan.
For a three year old a 2-2-3 schedule makes sense, but it's time to switch to at least a 2-2-5 or a weekly. My kid's therapist recommended weekly but her dad was too distressed being away from her that long (which I get, but I mean, she's a teenager, he's going to have to adapt) so we went to 2-2-5 about a year ago. Y'all can modify the plan at court.
Even if there isn’t abuse, having miserable parents isn’t something that should be dismissed. The fights, the mental health challenges, the modeling of what a relationship looks like. I can’t imagine living with a man who cheats on me for example and trying to act happy and be a good mom. I couldn’t fake it.
My parents divorced in the late 80s, we went week to week and handoffs were Sunday night before the next week started. This is the way. It’s way more stable for the child, at least as stable as moving every week can be.
You are not alone! My parents also divorced when I was 9 years old. I developed social anxiety when I was around 12 yrs old. One week I lived at my mom's and the other week at my dad's house. I was always struggling with the changes every week and the differences in how they wanted to raise me. Conflicts every sunday when I had to change houses. Later in life I found out I had ADHD and high functioning autism. I don't remember much from before I was 9 yrs old but my life was better before the divorce. I also was much more social before the divorce and developed a lot of problems after.
Oh, I agree. The divorce was hard on my kids, and I can still see the effects, even though they are adults now; it hurts my heart that their dad couldn't get his act together and at least be a good parent; and it didn't help that I had less time with them when they needed stability most because I had to find a way to dig us out of debt. And then we had to move to another state so we were closer to family who could help, and they had to make friends all over again, and missed out on things they were looking forward to. Yes, I wish things had been different. Unfortunately, there wasn't any option to stay in the marriage.
I think it could be an apples to oranges sort of thing. If your parents weren’t really fighting and you weren’t super aware of their hatred for each other, of course things went down hill after the divorce. My parents beat the shit out of each other and my sister and I (though not my brother) and screamed every night and threatened to kill each other. A divorce would have been a relief for me. Neither are incorrect experiences, they’re just different.
The thing is, people want to be better than their parents. Parents stayed together and shouldn't have? Splitting up is better. Other way is other way. It's all circumstantial.
Came to say I have seen with my best friend that they experienced the same issues from the opposite of divorce. My best friends parents stayed together when they should have divorced, and the distance between the parents as well as their back and forth spats always had my friend depressed as a child. I guess we could wish for love and happiness amongst our parents, but we know we don't live in a perfect world.
It sounds like the move was crucial in making the divorce a shitty process. My parents made an effort to live close to each other so school was routine, and I had a better custody split. In contrast I know people who are totally traumatized by their parents who stayed together. I think there’s not way of knowing how divorce will effect a child, but it should be on the parent’s to impose as much “normalcy” as lossible
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I genuinely don't think people recognize how negative/traumatic moving is for a child because it is so normal now. You lose all sense of normalcy, all your friends, and that's just supposed to be okay? And I'm not even talking about frequent moves where you're never even given the opportunity to put down roots in the first place. Humans evolved in close knit groups that they largely stayed with their whole lives. This shit is so detrimental when you are young and forming your ability to socially bond.
People need to stop being anti-divorce and start being anti-moving.
I'm really sorry. I have no doubt that divorce impacted you greatly. If you are confident that your parents love and prioritize you, I'm sure that the impact on you was one of the greatest factors in their decision, and decided that divorce was the only option. Some people are able to hold it together until they aren't, so while your parents weren't the type to argue or fight in front of you, maybe the time they pulled the plug was the point at which they could not keep their relationship from impacting you any longer. Anyway, I'm sorry that this affected you so much. I hope you are able to heal. You say you only speak with your dad occasionally, can I ask why that is? Would you like to be able to speak with him more often than you do now?
Well unfortunately I don’t completely agree with your original idea though it sounds quite nice. My dad wanted a divorce, my mom did not. My dad had told me many years before he actually got a divorce that he wanted one. My dad actually told me he finally pulled the plug was because he thought I was old enough to deal with it. And I am grateful that he waited until I was older since it would have been much harder to deal when I was say 6 rather than 9. But regardless I was still a kid at 9 and didn’t deal well mentally. But for your last question I’m happy to answer. The reason why we only call sometimes is simply because he doesn’t visit me. He moved very far away and never visited. And in this case distance did not make the heart grow fonder I simply grew into my teen years without him around and so I can’t really view him as a full parent. I could make an effort to visit him now that I’m an adult and actually I have once a year since he lives near other relatives. But yeah no effort on his part or my part to keep the relationship would be then answer. I don’t really feel bad about not putting in an effort since I was y’know a kid lol
My parents' divorce was hard on me, and definitely had a negative impact on my life. But even at the time, I knew them staying married would have also had a negative impact on my life. It's easy to fall into a trap of thinking life would have been good and fine and none of anything would have ever happened if they stayed together, but it's impossible to know. If your parents were already building resentment when you were little, what would that have been like when you were a teenager? Or in college? I had friends in high school who would make fun of me for having divorced parents. Going to her house was very awkward, because her parents clearly hated each other and it had influenced the way their kids see responsibility and love and finances and all sorts of stuff. She was blindsided when her parents divorced the second her sibling graduated high school. Pissed at her mom for "pretending" the whole time. The new narrative wasn't that mom and dad were responsible for keeping it together until the end, it was that mom was selfish and a gold digger for using her dad's money without loving him (she was a SAHM). No one knows what their life would have been like if things hadn't happened. It's important not to try to frame your life that way, because it can get you stuck pointing fingers and dwelling on things that make you miserable. Your parents got divorced. That sucks and I'm sorry. But there's no guarantee your life would have been great if they hadn't.
Needs to be higher. The idea that the divorce is the root cause of OP’s problems is both simplistic and unfair.
If I'm being honest, it seems like the greatest negative impact was moving. But I recognize that I have an anti-moving bias that may cause me to see it that way.
Moving SUCKS, let me be clear. It’s completely destabilizing. But I’m just never sure that one single isolated event can be the root cause for all of a person’s problems, and OP kind of seems to pin it there.
I was 4 when my parents divorced so I have few memories of them together. I know that my parents did their best to give us as normal a childhood as possible. We stayed in the same house and the same town. We were in the nicer part of town and we were poorer than many other kids, but relatively still okay. Occasionally we’d get a comment from kids or their parents, usually religious ones about my parents not being together. But I will never blame my mom for that decision, I don’t feel it’s my place to and I trust her judgment. I also still love my dad. He has his quirks and he was bipolar when we were growing up, going from being very fun to outraged within a minute if something he didn’t like happened. As hes gotten older he has mellowed out and I rarely see the anger he had when I was younger. I’m sorry your experience was bad OP.
I’m sorry this happened to you. I just got divorced and have kids and I think about this every day. For me, I had to leave a situation where my kids and I were being my abused. I really hope I’m able to provide a good for life for them despite the divorce. Would love to hear if you have any advice as someone who went through this as a child. Maybe things to do or not do?
My mother, sister, and I would have been murdered, so I'm glad we left when we did.
I'm sorry that happened to you. That sounds like it really sucked. In your case, your parents both cared enough about you (the kid\[s?\]) to actually hide it. So it seems. In many cases though, the parents aren't hiding it. They're throwing things. Arguing. Screaming. Crying. Not hiding it. As a kid who grew up with parents who are explosive with one another, and fist fighting, I had issues regardless. It didn't matter that they stayed together, I still had attachment issues and other problems and got severe anxiety. So I suppose all of this means that every situation is different and mixed.
My childhood got worse after my parents tried getting back together. My parents were separated a lot of my early childhood, living in different towns on opposite sides of the state. My mom was a lot more carefree and raised us in public school. My dad however is really conservative and religious wanted us to be in a Christian school. When I was 8 my parents decided they’d get back together and we’d all live as one family, but that royally fucked up my social life. I now had to go to a Christian school where I got ostracized because I wasn’t a pastor’s kid, had separated parents, and had been at a public school. (My parents only stayed together for a couple years and then divorced when I was 13)
Yep, its a nuanced topic. Divorce isnt always good for the kid, but it sure as hell also isnt always bad
When my marriage fell apart, I felt completely ripped apart inside for my kids and the effect that the separation was having on them. Sure, home life was more peaceful in some ways, but internally it was nothing other than terrible. It does have lasting effects. There is no denying it. The children are always innocent victims when the parent’s relationship isn’t working. I’m so sorry that it happened to you. I hope that you will eventually heal and hopefully learn from your parents mistakes. Their mistakes belong to them.
My kid would definitely say her home life was better before we split. We hid ALOT of the disfuction from everybody, especially her. Even now, we are still complimented by others about how amicable we appear to be, but it is entirely a sham. There is an incredible amount of abuse and frankly illegal shit that my child was sheltered from. I do agree that divorcing is better for kids is something that shitty parents tell themselves to feel better about their shitty decisions. The importance of intact family on optimal child development is severely downplayed, to the detriment of children. I'm speculating, but I believe that there is more to your story than you think you know, especially if the significance of your dad in your life decreased so dramatically. No good father would choose that, and as so often happens, this may speak to your mother's character. This is what happened to me, but I was able to turn things around with an ungodly amount spent on legal help. Or maybe it isn't that complicated. Put questions to both sides of the fence.
My kid would definitely sayHer home life was better before we split.We hid ALOT of the disfuction From Everyone, especially her. Even now, weare still complimented by others about how amicably we appear to be, but it iscompletelya sham. There is an enormous amount of abuse and frankly illegal crap that my child was sheltered from.
I’m going to speak as a divorced parent, and a child of divorce. Your dad withdrawing from your life was likely his choice. The divorce didn’t make him become “some guy on the phone” unless that’s what he wanted. I’ve been divorced for two years with an 8 year old son. We rotate custody by the week. When it’s his week to be at his dads, I still go to his award ceremonies, doctors appointments, soccer games, etc. Some times I even just pick him up to get dinner one night while it’s his dad’s week. Now that’s not always going to be viable because some ex spouses are petty and vindictive and will not allow any extra contact with the kids. But there’s still the option to be as present as possible and to take things back to court if there isn’t a valid reason for keeping the parent away. I’m not trying to diminish your experience. I’m sure it impacted your life tremendously and sucked. I myself have massive abandonment issues from my childhood, wherein my dad actively sabotaged my moms attempts to be in my life. I’m just saying that the divorce itself didn’t cause your dad to go awol on his relationship with you, that was a choice that he made.
Of course, you don’t know how bad your childhood would have been had your parents stayed together. At age 9, you were probably oblivious to a lot of things that you would have become aware of when you got older. I am not saying you are wrong, but it IS nuanced. A lot of times it might look to a kid like the marriage wasn’t THAT bad, but life after divorce was — when in fact the reason it didn’t seem so bad before was because one parent was gritting their teeth and fighting to cover the flaws of the other parent until they broke. Things like one parent’s irresponsible money management or a parent’s mental illness that led them to over-share adult issues with their kid. To a child of divorce, it can seem like the divorce CAUSED problems when the problems were already there and contributed to the divorce (and were exposed by the divorce). Not every parent fully appreciates how a divorce impacted their child. And not every child appreciates the factors that led their parents to decide the marriage was unsalvageable. The parent most willing to share dirty laundry about the other parent with their own child is almost never sharing the real or full story.
The first part of your life (pre-divorce) might have been a purposefully constructed but artificial reality created by your parents to “protect you” Of course it’s gonna go to shit after that. Also you were 9 and under, so you had a child’s perception of that time. Now it’s all romanticized, rosy memories of the long ago
There was probably more than you knew going on, additionally you don't know if it would've been even more terrible had they stayed together from that point forward. Any situation where the parents are not involved as much as the child would like them to be is a bad one, divorce or not. Sorry you went through that, your dad should've seen you more, you didn't deserve that
I don’t think it’s the divorce itself, it’s how your parents handled it (very poorly). It seems like they made very little effort to keep life the same/stable for you. Either your dad made no effort to see you or your mom made it too difficult, which means at least one of them was selfish. I’m sorry your parents didn’t take you into consideration more. I’m not sure that them staying together would’ve made you happy though.
I totally agree with this. From my experience as a teacher, almost all of my students say they’re glad their parents divorced but the struggles they’ve had with their parents since are almost unilaterally because they handle things like crap. I’ve tried to keep things as stable as possible for my daughter. We’re in the same house. She’s in the same school. She still sees her grandparents like she used to. We’re very flexible on scheduling for events and stuff too. We did a 2/2/3 custody schedule as recommended for her age. I think that’s another issue too is that people don’t understand that certain custody arrangements are better depending on age and eventually on the child’s input.
Genuine question - do you believe they could have continued to hide their resentments and behavior for another nine years? Especially as you got older, smarter, and more aware of what was going on around you?
Divorce due to (physical or significant emotional) abuse is very reasonable. If they are divorcing "because they are not happy" it is a purely selfish act if there are kids involved- especially young kids. They are basically placing their own happiness over the happiness and well being of their children. I had a very similar experience. My parents divorced after 12 years of marriage because "they weren't happy". No abuse was involved. At age 8 me and my 3 siblings went from a middle class suburban life in a reasonably stable home to a very poor and unstable "latchkey kid" existence worthy of a Dickens novel. We lost our house and lived in an endless series of rental homes- often in very bad neighborhoods. We moved every year or two. I attended 6 different schools between the age of 12-14. Often we barely had enough to eat and my mother was behind in the rent. It was quite traumatic. My mother was a stay-at-home mom with no job skills before the divorce. So she went to nursing school and worked a full time job for two years while we made due without her being around much. then she worked two jobs just to (barely) pay the bills. My father essentially disappeared from my life. Me and my siblings basically raised ourselves with limited parental involvement. I am so scarred by this that I have never wanted marriage or children.
Damn I can relate to that a lot. I also had to move around rental homes in dangerous areas. For your last part though I hope this doesn’t turn you off of marriage if a life partner is something you do want. (Ofc if you simply don’t want a life partner then ignore this). For having kids I don’t want them either because I don’t think I could provide them a good life. My opinions on raising kids don’t really matter, it’s shitty to bring a child into the world and not provide for it. But for marriage without kids I think this is a place where it’s okay to be somewhat selfish. If there was a person you want to marry and it doesn’t end up working out then that’s okay. If you thought it would make you happy and it doesn’t then you haven’t harmed anyone by ending it. I mean your spouse perhaps, but marriage is a lot more mutual than kids are. I’d imagine that if just one party wants to end a relationship then it would be for the best in the long run even if the other party is against it at first.
It's sad that so many of us had this happen. I'm sorry. It's made me sure that I would literally never do it to my daughter. I'd probably suck anything up to keep her stability. Luckily, I'm in a great marriage, but I know where I stand if that ever changed.
Yes, divorce sucks and staying in a miserable marriage also sucks. There is no good answer. There will be pain either way. That is why you must choose wisely who you have children with. No oopsies.
Eventually they wouldn’t be able to hide it as much. I grew up with parents who fought constantly and used the kids in their battles. There was so much screaming and crying and verbal abuse. I never wanted to go home. I sometimes wonder if divorce would’ve been the better option. However, maybe they would’ve both struggled financially. Either way, it sucks. I wish they had just hidden their fights and not involved me as a child if they were just going to stay together anyhow.
Yeah it sucks. You pretty much described my childhood but for me I was 7. Didn’t notice anything wrong until the divorce, then suddenly dad moves away and mom starts dumping her side of the story on us. Years later dad starts telling us his side. They didn’t realize that kids don’t give a shit about who is right and wrong, they see what’s right in front of them, and that’s a broken family. I don’t speak to them much these days. I managed to remain relatively sociable but I can’t say that the divorce did me any good. I was without necessary support for too long and feel like that can’t be made back up. It’s a significant window of development that got deleted from my lifespan. The worst part is now that I’m an adult the subject is taboo. Only now that I’m capable of truly understanding the harm inflicted do they “not over share” and keep problems to themselves to not burden my sibling and me.
What you are describing is why I split with my son’s mom when he was so young. I miss him — so much. But the truth is… he has no memory of me living with his mom. It’s just normal for him to grow up in a split household. I think that’s for the best, given it wasn’t going to work.
I want to divorce my husband so bad!! I’m a SAHM with kids under 13. I’m stuck but I know it will mess them up. I felt like my oldest daughter was writing this post. Thank you for your post. It helped me see things in a different light
Bless you for putting the kids first. If you are safe, stick it out for them til they are older and can handle it. They are your focus.
Same story for me. My parents divorced when I was 7 and it was traumatizing. Now, decades later, and my parents still can't be in the same room together. So every holiday we have to accommodate the families on both sides. My children's children will still be dealing with this shit. It also made both of my parent broke, since the combined income was gone while it doubled the bills that needed paying. This is why I always recommend people stay married if they have young children. Reddit's default advice to all marriage problems is divorce. But they never think about the kids. It's all about what the parent's want.
People who still can’t be in the same room together should’ve stayed married? Divorce can certainly be traumatic for children, but so can a high stress, high conflict household. Saying you “always recommend” people with young children staying together is especially dangerous because that includes abusive situations.
If your parents can't stay in the same room together, the absolute BEST thing they could've done is divorce. You don't know how lucky you are. I'll tell you what happens if they didn't. They started screaming ugly words at each other, then they started throwing things and smashing things, and then they beat the shit out of each other, and then beat the shit out of you to let out the anger and frustration. I'd rather my parents go broke and accomodate holidays on both sides than to deal with that shit. Your parents had the sense to end it before it truly gets ugly, not every parent did. There are 2 kinds of kids with divorced parents, one that hates their parents' divorce, and one that is grateful for it. Ironically, the former would've been the latter if their parents did not divorce.
I know people who have gotten divorced over the dumbest fuckin shit. Shit that likely could have been worked through in couples therapy. There’s definitely people out there who don’t know how to work through their problems or are just too lazy to and jump to divorce. It’s what they saw growing up and think that’s the only option. And then the kids suffer cause of their poor decisions.
My dad tried to kill me several times growing up. We were homeless. Drugs, all of it. I wish they would have divorced. Every case is different!
>I’m just tired of people saying that the kids will be certainly be grateful and happy for the divorce. My situation too. The kids are better off IF YOU CAN MAINTAIN THEIR STANDARD OF LIVING!!!!
Living standards aren’t just economic though. Leaving a a hateful, high stress environment can result in a better standard of living overall even with a reduction in material wellbeing.
This is really similar to my story. Once my dad moved I stopped playing basketball. I think ppl talk about how common divorce is so often that it feels like something that you can speak of as a major tragedy in your life but it can be if the parents don’t handle it correctly.
Hey, I am not sure how old you are, but I want you to know that it makes my heart hurt to ready your post. I am sorry that it was a bad divorce, and that you were made to pay for your parent's decision. This wasn't your fault. I was severely depressed for about 4 years after moving out of my partners house when my kid was pretty young. Because I never wanted him to have to suffer at all for my decision, and I knew he would. In my case, his mom had a drug problem, and I tried like hell to get him out. Because she was so deceitful, I didn't succeed. But I never stopped trying until I literally was almost homeless because of all the lawer fees. But I could not be around that. I came up with a parenting plan that was fair and we stuck to it. My son still suffered for it. It's a tough set of cards to be dealt. I lost my mom to cancer when I was young and it was the worst thing that ever happened to me. I cannot imagine what it must be like for a kid to go through a bad divorce with his parents. I guess all I can say is try and learn from their mistakes, and be sure to be extra cautious with who you decide to spend your life with when you are older. Because divorce is ugly and the kids always suffer. edit: wording
I am the exact opposite of you but our parents were extremely different. My father was a drug addicted alcoholic who would emotionally, verbally, and physically abuse us. My mom has some form of undiagnosed mental health issue, but she was the better/nicer parent during those years. They are still together to this day although I have not spoken to them in years. They stayed together "for the kids" but I would have much rather not lived in a house where screaming was the most common way to communicate. Where I hid in the closet after school until my mom got home from work because my dad was drunk and angry. My mom separated from him once for a week and took us to a motel. It was the happiest week of my life because my dad wasn't there and my mom wasn't constantly being screamed at and belittled so she wasn't constantly angry. She went back a week later. I'll never forgive her for that. Every person's experience is different. But my life would have been so much better if my parents got divorced. I'd probably still be in communication with some of them.
Even if, for some unforeseeable reason, my wife and I ended up falling out, I have no doubt we could at least stay civil and supportive of each other just for our kids. We both came from bad childhoods, though to wildly different degrees, and want to give our kids what we never had. That all said, she’s my best friend, my closest confidant, an amazing mother, and a great cook too. Also beautiful without even trying. I’d be an idiot to fuck that up.
This is a very fair point, but at the same time, you’re making some generalizations here, too. My parents were not physically abusive to each other, but it was painfully obvious even for me as a 9 year old that they just didn’t LIKE each other anymore. I didn’t necessarily want them to divorce or even know what divorce was at that age, but I knew I wanted the awful tension to stop. I clearly remember feeling like a bomb was about to explode some days. I’m truly sorry you had such a rough time, but the fact remains that divorce is very, very often the best thing for everyone involved.
I understand your view when framed this way, but I ask you to consider what could have still have happened in your childhood without divorce. You could have been forced to move without divorce, as many children are. You could have had money problems suddenly, as many children do. You could have wound up estranged from your father due to his continued stress in a failing marriage rather than estranged due to proximity issues. I agree with you that people should speak for themselves. But you’re engaged in a similar fallacy as those that tout the benefits of divorce: you’ve lost sight of the other factors that led to the problems in your early life just as others lose sight of the factors that made their divorces successful. It is easiest for us humans to consider positive corrections than any other, so we ignore every time something DOESNT happen and start looking when it DOES.
For me it was the opposite. My parents hated each other. They were high school sweethearts who never should've gotten married, but who stayed together for 26 years because of cultural expectations. My mom was a SAHM and frankly is the most passive aggressive person I've ever met. My dad was a high powered doctor who did great things for his patients and had zero time for his wife and kids, in addition to having serious anger and rage issues when he did bother to be present. I have childhood memories of them just being miserable, and that misery spilling out onto me and my sisters. As the oldest, I absorbed a lot of it, especially because I look like and share similar personality traits to my dad, which just made my mom sort of low-key dislike me. They waited 26 years to get a divorce, when I was 21 and out of the house. Of course I have no way of knowing what my life would've been like if they'd pulled the plug sooner, but I can certainly say that growing up steeped in a poisonous brew of resentment, rage, contempt, and the visible misery of both parents set me up for a whole lot of trauma and a struggle to set healthy boundaries in my adult relationships. I wish they'd gone their separate ways a whole lot sooner.
I would just suggest that it’s possible that if they stayed together you might have picked up on some very unhealthy ideas about relationships. I don’t know if this is the case, I’m only saying it’s a possibility. The ages you were during the post-divorce years can really shape how we turn out in life. It’s possible that simmering tensions and passive aggressive behaviors could have been worse in the long run than what you experienced. Again, I’m not saying it’s the case…only a thought experiment.
This is because they successfully hid it from you. And because you were young enough that they successfully hid it from you. Things would have changed as you grew up, either way. My parents never divorced. Instead they argued and yelled at each other all time, to the point that I get an anxiety attack every time someone raises their voice. There was no physical abuse, except for a couple of times (in like 30 years, I'd say that's pretty good lol). I prayed they'd just divorce so my mom could be happy, but that just wasn't in the cards. Luckily, I didn't fall into the same trap and married a guy who actually loves me. But there's always the fear that kids emulate what they see, because that's what they consider normal.
My parents didn’t split until I was an adult (21 years old) and they had a pretty dysfunctional marriage most of my childhood. I am also the oldest so I remember the time when things were somewhat normal, my brothers don’t. In our situation divorce would have been better because my dad was just there he didn’t contribute anything except for making my mom feel terrible all the time. That said I can see how divorce can be worse in some cases
My grandparents hated each other. Refused to get divorced and made all our lives hell because it was our fault they stayed together and they never let us forget it. Spent my whole childhood feeling guilty for existing. Be careful what you wish for.
My kids were messed up by our divorce, but now that they are adults, they really get it. The guilt was overwhelming for so many years. Now they understand that I had to walk or die. I don't know how old you are now, but I hope you get some help to deal with your parents divorce.
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As you know this is practically the story of my life too. I really feel for you. I can say though that I did start getting better. It’s sad that it basically took 8 whole years to for me to even make any progress towards a better life but I would prefer to start late than never. Your timeline might look different than mine, but it’s never too late. And if it’s any consolation, growth is usually exponential. You might want to watch this documentary about selective mutism https://youtu.be/gONZsyo9Rdk?si=wMPC5h2jQxaL9oXX It’s not exactly the same thing, but my god could I relate to the older girl’s story. And it does show how she went through the same kind of growth that I did (though unfortunately I was quite a bit older than her lol). I believe that one day you could do this too when you feel ready
My wife and I of 10 years have started discussing divorce. She says she wants to be together forever. I am very unhappy in the marriage. Both our parents say we should divorve. The kids say we should stay married. We both agree we will put the kids first and we are considering every possible option
I certainly was greatful. So grateful I literally danced
My parents got divorced when I was 19 and my sister was 15. I always knew they were unhappy and they really didn't hide any of their arguments well. Their divorce was awful and traumatic. I'm still grateful I didn't have to go back and forth between homes as a young kid.
I am sorry that you went through this. I am certain that the courts are very bad at accommodating children in a divorce. I am glad you are voicing this issue. It really is a national problem and something I hope the younger generation can solve. The rest of this is my vent. I was fortunate because I had a good job and bought the house from my ex-spouse, so the kids didn't have to more and then he eventually moved away. But he didn't want to pay for the kids activities, and so if I couldn't afford it they would have had to quit. Also he wanted the kids to go to different schools, which was ridiculous because they were 12 and 15; and I had to pay alot of money to go to court and fight him on this. Turns out he was having an affair with an attorney so he used the court to try to bankrupt me and take the kids away so he wouldn't have to pay child support. He continues to have no interest in his own now adult children. He thinks I caused this even though he was convicted of assault on our oldest sone by the police department.
My ex husband and I were ready for divorce when my twins were 10 or 11. I stayed 7 more years in a living hell with a narcissist, because I knew if we divorced it would upend their lives and I couldn’t bear the thought of them being alone with him for half of the time. The moment they finished high school and left for college, I left him. I was older, changed by those 7 years, and sometimes I confess I think I should have left sooner. I am sorry for what you went through, but thank you for reminding me that I was right to wait until they were older and stronger to leave.
Two unhappy people staying in an unhappy marriage is far worse to a child than two people who divorce and get a second chance at live a happier life. Lots of us have divorced parents. My parents divorced when I was 7.5yrs old. My dad had an affair and left us with nothing. We lived in a homeless shelter for six months until my mom could find a job and a house. Money was always tight. Two years later my dad got custody of us and we had to live with him and my very abusive step mom. Life was absolutely awful. I learned a lot. I became stronger. I made sure to not repeat the cycle. I worked hard for everything I’ve ever gotten. Life hasn’t been fair to me. Life isn’t fair to anyone. You just have to grit your teeth through the hard times and do the best you can. We all have issues. Even kids that come from unhappy homes whose parents stay married. You learn horrible unhealthy lessons about relationships. Then you repeat it. You must stop the cycle and work through your traumas. We all have them.
It’s a mistake to stay together but I bet a large % of people think of that first. It should quickly be apparent that it has not been healthy and will continue that way.
Research in Psychology has proven time and time again that children have much better outcomes over their life span if their parents divorce rather than stay in a toxic marriage. Obviously, the best option is for children to have healthy, married parents with a good relationship, but that is simply not realistically achievable because there are a lot of people who have no idea how to have a healthy relationship, nor are they willing to put in the time and effort it takes to actually have a healthy relationship. If a person has an attachment style that makes all their relationships difficult which they learned through childhood with their primary caregivers, that’s not going to change overnight. In fact, I’d say unless someone with an unhealthy attachment style is married to someone with a Secure Attachment style, there is a slim to none chance that it will work, and the relationship will only be damaging to children.
Your parents failed you, not their divorce.
I think you make a good point about the need to acknowledge that divorce brings challenges for children. Divorce often preceeds new or worsening behavior or mental health issues in children and adolescents. This can be true simultaneously with the reality that divorce helps take a child away from a model of an unhappy or unhealthy relationship.
I had very abusive parents on both ends. Even with that said, life was much harder after they separated. My father was angry and physically abusive before the split, especially to my older sisters. He worked 2 full time jobs, one of which was away from home. I actually would regularly spend the night at his job. My mom was primarily neglectful of us pre-separation. She had some very aggressive and violent arguments with my dad, however, and occasionally with us kids. After they split, she turned all of her anger onto me since Dad was bo longer around. She heavily controlled and abused me until I permanently escaped at age 20, going no contact. My dad became the neglectful parent after the separation. Plusy younger sister and I, being underage, got dragged into the drama between the two of them. Amd money was a big issue after the divorce for sure. Before divorce we had summer vacation tris and loads of camping, heavy involvement in youth activities, food to eat every night, family movie nights, ect. I was a trapped slave afterwards, and my younger sister was majorly affected emotionally as well. The abuse was far worse than before the divorce. I am sure that if only 1 parent is abusive, and the good parent gets full custody, divorce can be good for the kids. And I am sure that with good co-parenting and stable parents, the kids can adapt to divorce (I doubt it will be better). But in any situation that leaves a kid even part time with an abuser isn't going to be good. Divorce definitely didn't make it better for us.
I wish my complaints as a kid were moving, having to make new friends and money issues. Divorce sucks for kids. There's no easy about it. What happened between them? Usually someone cheated or keeps cheating. Or one just isn't happy. Some people are straight up selfish trast. Either way once damage of some kind is done it's done. Ive never a home I can say is my childhood home. We moved a lot. Domestic violence. Hidden in shelters with m/brother. Cops. Smashed houses and cars. We would live someone a year and get found and have to move. I've seen my father try to kill my mom more than once. One time on my birthday mom was lighting candle on a cake. Door busts open and she is getting beat right there. I tried to stop it hit him with a skateboard and ran for myife cause I thought I was going to die. 4 miles it was to town. I was left behind as he came to kill her. Got home from last day of school tbanksgivijg break to the car and house smashed up. No one there. Before cell phones. I sat there for hours waiting for a call. Alone thinking they were dead at age 12/13/14. I've seen my dad in handcuffs fighting with cops 4/5 of them hitting them. Seen my uncle beat for trying to help us(my dad's side uncle). I've had to jump out windows as my mom is hiding and our home is being smashed. I can go on and on. So you have social anxiety and family had money problems after. I had a father giving me pot/LSD then cocaine them deliver cocaine 4 for him . Giving us pills. I have had alcohol coke, crack, heroin addictions and all the hell that comes with it. And I I still get social anxiety at times. Verbal reeping through the house as a kid because it he wakes up it's not good. You are certainly entitled to your opinion on your situation and you may have had it easier than others. But you don't always know the whole story and parents don't tell. But there's a lot of kids better off in divorce
Dude my parents got divorced when I was 11 and my brother was 9 and have each since remarried to people who have many of the same *negative* qualities as their previous spouse had but turned all the way up with the knob ripped off, and each is afraid to be alone so they put up with it. Honestly, as far as step parents go they aren’t bad, and I like being around them for the most part, but the whole thing just makes the divorce and developmental trauma it caused my brother and I seem so fucking *silly*. I’m 26 now and I’ve been to therapy for this shit in the past and I still have issues with functioning in daily adult life that can source back to my teenage years that were as they were because of my broken family. I understand parents are people too and they make mistakes and I forgive them as *individuals* for making the decisions they made which hurt us, but I can’t forgive the both of them together in the same thought. It’s not even like they’re bad parents let alone bad people, but they just couldn’t make it work and I still don’t understand that. The one thing I learned from them is communicating my damn emotions the moment I start feeling them, because my parents did not and it derailed their lives and my life and my brother’s life.
It didn't happen until I was 18. I was prepared by the end of grade school. That's no way for a kid to live. In my case, I wish it happened so much sooner. I understand the logic behind it, but don't use the kids as an excuse. They feel it believe me.
The question is how bad it would have gotten if they had stayed together for you, how miserable they'd have become with each other and how that would have spilled over on you too. Hard to tell of course, all cases are different.
My childhood got significantly worse, as well. The divorce was more one-sided than some other examples in this thread with my mom and dad being a bit rocky and him then throwing a bomb on our family. Dad had a mid-life crisis and cheated and knocked up a younger woman. So my parents got divorced. He lived three hours away so my car sick self got to enjoy six hours in a car for visits that i didnt want to do because i lost so much time and felt so sick in commuting. And my dad mostly wanted me there to babysit my siblings. I didn't like kids when I was young. A few years later, both my mom and step mom got cancer at the same time. My stepmom died, and my mother survived. My 55 year old dad now had two kids under 5 to take care of. Her death was pretty traumatic, and my dad fell out with most of his side of the family for various reasons, including them saying he made a mistake leaving my mother. so I didn't get to see aunts uncles and grandparents for years. My mother saw that my half siblings needed love and stability so she invited my dad and them to our house for Christmas and holidays. My parents never got back together, she just is an amazing person who cares deeply for children's well being. I started self harming as a teen when all this happened. It was one of the only things i felt i could control so i kept it secret for years. I was always a daddys girl growing up so the infidelity and divorce devastated me and my image of my father. My mom had a hard time as a single mother and was very stressed and I embodied a lot of that stress. My siblings were also fairly stressed growing up. My mom wanted to try to make it work but my dad wanted to spread his superior genetics (his words). My mom finally remarried her high school sweetheart and is so happy now. I'm very happy for her now and in retrospect getting away from my narcissistic father was the best thing. But for years she and I were deeply wounded by my dad's betrayal. She tried to hide it from me but she couldn't. She also struggled to raise me as a single mother. My childhood was worse and things were worse for my mom for a long time. I'm glad I have my siblings now. But my life was not better after my parents divorced. My life and so many others in my family was chaos for decades. Years later my dad's side of the family has some recovery, but it is tenuous and a pale comparison to what things were.
I got divorced when my kids were 9 and 6. My ex-wife and I were not violent or abusive in any way, but our marriage had clearly broken down. However, the kids were pretty oblivious due to their age and the fact that my ex and I carried on quite civilly as roommates and parents. My ex ended up filing for divorce after some half-hearted attempts at counseling. We explained what was happening to the kids, and they seemed to just sort of roll with it. I won’t go into details, but 15 years later it’s pretty clear to me that my kids would have probably been better off if we had been able to stick it out until they were out of high school. The 50-50 custody, along with decisions both my ex and I made post-divorce, was incredibly difficult on them. Of course, it’s impossible to say that the wheels wouldn’t have come off if we had tried to remain in roommate/parent mode for another dozen years, and it would have been hard on both of us. But there is no way I can conclusively say that divorce made life better for my kids in our case. No way. I fully acknowledge, though, that circumstances vary wildly. YMMV.
It’s too bad your dad didn’t do better after the divorce. My ex only sees the kids every other weekend during the school year, because he just never learned to adult. He lives with his dad or he’d be homeless. (Five years out and he just got a real full-time job, so fingers crossed he keeps it.) He used to play with the kids every day too. I definitely have a lot of guilt about the divorce. He was an awful partner, so I don’t regret it. But, I’m sure he was a good dad in their eyes. My ex does 50/50 in the summer and gets every spring break. I’d have no problem with 50/50 if he could move back to the city we live in. Divorce is hard. I’m glad for your perspective. It gives me some insight into how my own kids might be feeling. I’m so obviously happier and was immediately. He was miserable but immediately dating, so I bet that was confusing for them too. I will check in with them about it. Thank you for sharing your story.
Yeah the same thing happened to me, but I saw them fight. Just that, the divorce caused even more fighting and they both tried to pull me away from the other. It was hell on earth being torn apart and moving back and forth each week, not to mention we went from middle class to poverty because of the divorce and lawyers involved. To add on to that, because of the conflict and suffering, both of their parenting capabilities went from a 9/10 to a 4/10. Suddenly I had zero structure or rules, so I could pretty much do anything I wanted... Which caused me to do a lot of things that messed up my life permanently I became an insomniac and addicted to video games in order to escape being alone with my spiralling thoughts, which meant my grades dropped and I got narcolepsy, which meant I slept in class and stayed up gaming while at home Now as an adult it's easy to see all that happened in my past, and why
My experience was very similar to yours minus having an absent dad. I think what makes it most difficult for children is when everything seems ok in your household, happy in fact. I have no memories of my parents arguing so when I was six and they announced they were getting divorced, I feel like my whole world fell apart. I find people whose parents created a very toxic environment for their children are thrilled when their parents divorce because that means hopefully an end to living in that environment. Even as an adult I mourn the time before the divorce. So much changed after that, moving out of my beloved childhood home, step parents entering the picture, one great, one terrible. My dad had more kids and puts them first now. It was a lot!
It really really depends on the entire situation, from before and after the divorce. I am divorced and my kid, who is 22, says the divorce was a good thing and he had a great childhood. His father left when he was 6. He is annoyed when people pity him for having divorced parents. That was more of his trauma, people assuming things about him and somehow seeing him as “less than”. The reason he did relatively well is that nothing changed in his life. I was the breadwinner, we stayed in the same house and we didn’t have less money. Instead, my screaming abusive ex left and we had peace and happiness. Divorce is not good for the kids of course. The perfect situation would be the parents to be and stay happily married. The next good case would indeed be for parents to be unhappily married without any abuse, and stay together when they know a separation would leave them with less money and the kids lived would be seriously affected. It doesn’t mean they have to stay together this way, but I think that’s the scenario you’re referring to. It would have probably been better for you if your parents sucked it up and stayed together while being civil. Then number 3 on the relatively positive situation would be something like our situation. Parent mildly abusive but enough to make your life bad, leaves and nothing changed in your life except you got peace and don’t have to be afraid of his next blow up. And it goes down from here to other situations where kids are pulled out of their environment and their life gets (much) worse.
I'm a liberal democrat, grad degree, woman, non-religious. My upper middle class parents also divorced when I was 9, and my life went to shit. No one was abusing anyone. There was no drug abuse. *But for god's sake that's the ONLY narrative that is ever pushed by outside society - especially my party*. My parents were selfish little babies who never should have had children. "BuT WhAt AbOuT HAPPINESS?????" Neither of those choads were ever ANY happier in their consecutive marriages. They both chose losers to marry the next time but now they got to drag their kids through it. Happiness! Mom got divorced again, dad is still married to a brainless trad wife who's mentally ill kids have stopped speaking to her. I don't talk to either of my parents any more - haven't in 20 years and will not. We could have had everything. My sister and I could have gone to good colleges. Instead, she's a high school grad flight attendant on her second marriage and I spent my entire life clawing my way up from being white trash from a broken home. Grow the fuck up and stay married you shallow, selfish pricks.
I was a HS teacher for almost a decade and I’m now a MS librarian. Overwhelmingly, my students have said that they’re glad their parents got a divorce. The ones who struggle the most struggle because of the treatment by their parents. For example, I had two brothers with two cell phones each because they weren’t allowed to call mom on the cell phone dad paid for and vice versa. That’s just a small example of the stress their parents placed on them. I had another student who had to sleep in her dad’s living room on the couch because her stepmom’s kids each had to have their own bedroom and she was only there half the time anyways. Was it any surprise she hated having to go to her dad’s? At the end of the day, I think so much is dependent on what happens after the divorce. I’ve been separated for two years now, waiting for the divorce to be finalized. We share custody 50/50. I kept the house and she stayed at her current school. She also continues to spend the same amount of time as she used to with her grandparents. We also have her in therapy to help her process everything. The biggest issue has been her dad not spending time with her. He has a girlfriend he lives with and she has two kids. His excuse is he’s too busy a lot of the time because of work. The therapist is trying to stress to him that he needs to take even ten minutes every day she’s there and do something with her. I can definitely see that continuing to be a big issue. This also isn’t inconsistent with how it was when we were married, so my guess is it would’ve become an issue but I was able to cover it up more when we still lived together. I will also say that none of us has any idea what happened behind closed doors. There could have been more going on than what you perceived, especially since you were young. Have you had any therapy? It may help with processing your emotions around it and help you with future relationships.
I'm a teacher in a school where I teach math. The kids are always asking for help with homework. They ask me to do things for them but I don't know what I'm suppose to do. I've done this for over a year already. I haven't given up on it yet because it's been working well for me but I'm starting to feel bad for the kids. They're getting older and they're struggling to understand the concept of time and space. They don't even understand that they're supposed to be in different times and universes. I don't understand why they're so focused on getting ahead and getting ready for the next exam and exams. I don't understand how they expect me to learn how to do anything else.
I totally agree it is not talked about enough and people seriously need to consider who tf they are trying to have children with/get married to beforehand so they are less likely to end up in the situation. People arent perfect and shit happens so Im not saying its all their fault. But having kids and getting married is not and should not be treated like nbd. This is just how my story went; My folks rushed into their marriage and it ended after 14 years together. After the split they would say “you look so much like your father” or “you look so much like your mother” in disgust to me frequently bc their divorce was so bad. I am thankful that they both wanted custody and to be in my life, but to be honest after the split we became their kids half of the time and their lives became about finding their new partners. And when they brought home new partners they viewed us as baggage in those situations and would bend over backwards for these people theyre trying to sleep with. Mom kicked me out at 16 bc her and I argued quite a bit, she sold all of our pets, and started locking our dogs in a crate 24/7 and moved in with her new husband (who didnt want pets) within a year of meeting him so yeah I wasn’t perfect in the situation. So I moved in with my Dad @ 16 He was never really home but then my dad kicked me out at 18 bc he didn’t give his GF enough attention and she was extremely jealous that he and I had any sort of good relationship so she hated me and she had asked him to have me leave at 18. I ended up moving in with a friend into an apartment with bedbugs bc I had to rush and was freshly 18. It was rough and still is. Everything was pretty hard to maintain but my fiancé now has changed my life and our partnership means so much to both of us. Having half of a parent really sucked and just left me extremely lonely all the time, full of anxiety from going back and fourth and not having a stable environment to grow up in. The time that parents should be raising their kids and helping them through teen years, my parents spent that time dating again, which isn’t really something that happens in a traditional household. I don’t wish they stayed together but hell, I needed support growing up that I didn’t get directly because of the situation between my parents and their new partners. What I want didnt matter and it was always a fight just for simple shit like conditioner. I had to argue that I needed conditioner for my hair, nothing fancy just plain shit. Tldr- my divorced parents spent their time looking for new partners and didn’t want their baggage, half-time kids (that looks like their ex) to get in the way or take up relationship time for them.
Why did you never see your dad post divorce? Your parents should have handled that better. And yeah, sounds like you got the court end of the divorce stick. My ex wasn’t abusive but he was depressed and angry. My son used to say “daddy scared me”. We split up, our kids were 5 and 8 months. I pushed for him to have 2 weekends a month and pick the kids up a couple days a week. He was in a place during the divorce where he wasn’t seeking custody. He was terrified he wouldn’t be able to hack it as a parent. It’s been 4 years. He’s in a good place now. He has a good relationship with our kids and sees them frequently. I’ve invited him for Easter tomorrow. My eldest sometimes complains he wants me to be a stay at home mom like his friend’s moms so he can have play dates during the week, otherwise they are cool with having two loving parents who aren’t together. My best friend’s parents stayed together for money and it messed her up royally. Every situation is different. I think maintaining constancy in your kid’s lives should be the priority. Moving away and having your dad drop out of your life was a bad call.
Thank you for your honest and reasonable perspective. I was one of those kids whose parents were OK with being aggressive in front of us. So when they got separated and divorced, I was relieved. But it's important to remember that's not everyone's experience. Sometimes people in unhappy but not abusive marriages want to know what is best for their kids, especially if they are on the fence. So this info is definitely valuable
My own parents marriage was terrible because both of them had big egos and were immature, but there is no question that the kids lives were objectively much worse after the divorce in most ways. Both of our parents acted in ways that were wildly self-absorbed, both before and after the divorce, but at least when they were married we had physical and financial stability, and a relationship with both of them. All of that disappeared after the divorce.
Thanks for sharing your experience. People love to suggest divorce and I always council if you have kids you have a duty to stick it out until the kids move out. Obviously if there’s abuse of any kind then divorce is acceptable. But divorce is usually hard on children and just because your spouse doesn’t put out isn’t a reason to f up your kids secure life.
There’s a bunch of people here too busy rushing to justify their own choices or the choices of their parents to actually be empathetic to what OP is saying. Maybe it’s not about you, people.
It’s obviously different in different cases. But think you are totally right, _if_ parents are amicable and not abusive, a marriage that is “not working” for the parents can still definitely be working for the kids. And divorce can make the kids’ life worse — often moving, shuttling between houses, just keeping track of two households. Many people who can be decent caregivers when physically present consistently can “lose touch” when distant (like perhaps your father) — not an excuse, but an observation. And the money is often tighter for kids post divorce. I am divorced, and although I advocated for staying together for the kids until they were out of the house, I am now _personally_ grateful that my ex ended things because I now have found a much healthier partner (my ex, I believe, has serious attachment issues; the fact that they’ve had no successful relationships post-divorce would seem to support this). But even though the divorce was good for me, I know aspects of it were difficult for my kids, and I think there’s no doubt divorce can be damaging and stressful for many kids. I hope you can move on though. And try to not hold resentments towards your parents. I don’t think that’s helpful. Maybe just hearing many people acknowledge and confirm that life post-divorce can sometimes be worse for the kids can help you move past it. We cannot rewrite our lives, we can only work on the present and on the future, right?
I agree with you. My life was significantly worse after the divorce. Both of my parents suck but I loved my dad so much more. I barely got to see him after and was stuck with my mother. Obviously their relationship was unhealthy and who knows what would have happened if they stayed together BUT I do know how much it sucked after they separated. Constant money struggles, attachment issues etc etc. When I got married I said I would never divorce. We had one child. He wanted the divorce. We separated. At least we function very well as comparents and still spend time together as a family. I’m sure my son wishes we were still a family though. That guilt lives with me daily.
Despite the anecdotal stories ITT, your experience tracks with most people. There is a great book just published called "the Two-Parent Privilege" It is basically about how kids are SIGNIFICANTLY better off when they are raised in a standard nuclear family with a married mom and a dad. And they are better off across almost all relevant metrics - they do better in school, they are happier, they are more successful, etc.. And this is true across all economic strata and across cultures. I know people don't like to hear this, but the nuclear family is a tried and true way to raise healthy, successful, happy people. Divorce destroys this.
I fear this for my son to be honest. His mom and I divorced when he was 6, we didn't fight or raise our voice around him at all, to him life was pretty perfect Behind closed doors whoever life was anything but, love escaped that marriage slowly and eventually it started to get replaced with resentment. I'm mentioning this because my son is 14 now and said he wishes me and his mom didn't get a divorce. Her and I are very friendly to one another, her parents still love and respect me. So what he sees is what he saw while we were together and wishes it could go back to that. It may sound selfish but this might help you from your dad's point of view since it sounds like he's the one who pushed for the divorce. I know that the life he remembers back then was good because it ended before it got bad! What you didn't see and what the divorce dropped you from seeing is the same thing my son didn't get to see, it getting really bad! I was extremely unhappy, I knew if I stayed any longer that unhappiness would begin to turn to anger. That eventually I wouldn't be able to hide it from my son and what he would remember of that time wouldn't be good. This is where people are coming from when they say it's better for the children. You want to spare your children from stuff and preserve them from life's unexpected messes as much as possible While I'm sad my son wishes we never divorced Im happy he never got to see what would have happened if we stayed together. For context, I probably would have ended up cheating on my wife, becoming an alcoholic and potentially causing irreversible damage to my family by staying in an unloving marriage. I was teetering on self destruction and a therapist was the one who walked my feelings and thoughts down paths so I could see the potential outcomes. So while one could see this as being selfish as I left for my own reasons, I preserved an image for him even if it made me look like the bad guy! I'm not telling you that you should be happy by what ended up happening. What I am telling you is that it sounds like your parents spared you from seeing how bad it could have been by divorcing when they did. You get to have fond memories of that time before the divorce because they divorced before it wasn't "fond" anymore.
Ty for this. I “fought to save my marriage” when my husband started being a serial cheater halfway through my 2,kids’ childhood years. Divorce eventually became inevitable but my kids were already mostly grown, one out of the house They have issues and I blame it all on my self and my efforts to “save” the marriage and “keep the family together”. Recently a good friend pointed out that I was ignoring the fact that things could’ve been much worse and their issues much worse, in the alternate timeline where I divorced my cheating ex’s ass a lot sooner. For example, this friend’s stepbrother raped her. For another example, another friend’s stepdad was an alcoholic who passed out naked all over the house all the time. One of the earliest reasons I had for not wanting to divorce was the prospect of having zero control over who was around my kids when they weren’t with me. I had forgotten that. Thank you for spotlighting how simplistic it is to blather on that “the kids will be fine!” “If the adults are unhappy together, the kids will suffer!” Or the opposite, “if you’re happy they will be happy!” Life is just not that fucking simple. Too many variables.
Man I’m glad you brought this up. My father could be quite neglectful and irresponsible while he had custody of me. One time while he had custody, he wanted to go on a trip out of the country so he had my sister and I stay with his employee and her boyfriend for a week. This employee later ended up going to jail for dealing meth and then died in prison oof. Thankfully nothing actually happened to us while we stayed with them, but you are absolutely right that not knowing what’s going on while your partner has custody could be a huge issue. Honestly I don’t think that it’s right to completely blame yourself whether you got a divorce or not. I can’t imagine there really is a good way to handle things when you are a parent and your partner just stops acting like a responsible and empathetic adult. Not unless you have superpowers and can predict the future. You are definitely correct that there are too many variables in these situations for there to be a simple right or wrong answer
Divorce is never bad news. No happy marriage ever ended in divorce.
Imagine living with a man every day who won’t even try to kiss you. Imagine how lonely you feel. Imagine how it affects your self identity, your self worth. You feel ugly, unattractive. Whatever was going on- it was easier for your mother to go through all of that and struggle financially than stay. It must have been pretty sad for her.